THE JAZZ ARCHIVIST A newsletter of the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive Volume XXX, 2017

Contributors: Colin Hancock and Hannah Krall, Vic Hobson,David Sager, Wayne D. Shirley

Bruce Boyd RaeburnCurator of the Hogan Jazz Archive, Re ring a er 38 Years of Service

Born in a Livery Stable - “First Jazz Record” Turns 100

photo by John McCusker

2 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

THE JAZZ ARCHIVIST

Volume XXX, 2017

© Tulane University Libraries, 2017. Permission to reproduce in whole and in part must be obtained in wri ng from Tulane University Libraries.

ISSN 1085-8415

EDITORIAL BOARDLynn Abbo , Editor

Alaina W. Hebert, Assistant EditorDr. Bruce Boyd Raeburn, CuratorDavid Banush, Dean of Libraries

In This Issue:

3-14 “Unraveling the Dawn of Recorded Jazz” by David Sager

15-24 “How Did the ODJB Learn to Play ‘Livery Stable Blues?’” by Vic Hobson

25-37 “Centenary Lessons: Exploring the Roots of Jazz and the Music of the Original Dixieland ‘Jass’ Band” by Colin Hancock and Hannah Krall

38-43 “In the Archive”

44-53 “‘Bessie Smith and Her Band’: The March 2, 1927, Session” by Wayne D. Shirley

54-56 “A Sneak Preview of the Eddie Edwards Collec on”

57-59 “Curator’s Commentary”

HOGAN JAZZ ARCHIVE6801 FRERET STREET ROOM 304

TULANE UNIVERSITYNEW ORLEANS, LA 70118-5682

Regarding the Cover

The fi rst jazz record turned 100 this year, and the Hogan Jazz Archive turned 59. Meanwhile, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Curator of the Jazz Archive, will turn 69, and he has decided to retire at the end of this year. Nobody knows the Jazz Archive better than Bruce. He came aboard as a student assistant in 1980 and worked his way up the ladder, becoming a staff member in 1984, and then taking the helm in 1989, as the fourth in a noteworthy succession of curators: Bill Russell, 1958-1962; Dick Allen, 1962-1980; Curt Jerde, 1980-1989. While putting his own distinctive brand on the place, Bruce wisely incorporated what he observed to be the most positive insights of his predecessors. During his long, eventful tenure, Bruce has nurtured more than a few promising students, and he has gone the extra mile to avail the full Jazz Archive experience to the widest possible constituency, from local backstreet musicians to scholars and pilgrims from around the world. The Hogan Jazz Archive will hopefully continue to reap the rewards of his successful efforts to build a stronger and more diverse institution.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 3

Unraveling the Dawn of Recorded JazzBy David Sager

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who made the fi rst jazz recordings in February 1917, has received le -handed compliments and faint praise for their recorded eff orts. More o en, they have been maligned by jazz historians, musicians, and afi cionados, who have repeatedly branded their work as mechanical, s ff , corny – or, at best – deriva ve.

By assessing the ODJB’s recordings side-by-side with those made by other bands several years later, under very diff erent cultural circumstances, one can see that these cri cs have skewed musical history by inven ng outcomes based on personal prejudice and a narrow view of musical progression. The cri cs also helped plant the idea that jazz on record follows the same chronology as the music itself. Somehow, they have ignored the fact that the ODJB played an unnamed New Orleans-style dance

Courtesy Library of Congress Na onal Jukebox

4 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

music that shared common musical proper es with King Oliver, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, and others. Instead, the ODJB gets lumped together with their contemporaneous imitators who knew nothing, or at least li le, about musical counterpoint or playing crea vely using chord changes.

Much of this is due, in part, to the fact that the ODJB – a white band – was largely represented in later years by bigoted and obtuse remarks from their corne st, Nick LaRocca, who made some par cularly odious comments about the African American role in jazz. Also, because their musicianship is some mes hard to discern through the fog of acous cal recordings and the frene c pace of the then popular one-step tempos, the ODJB has never been given an objec ve listening to by most. This ar cle is an a empt to rehabilitate the ODJB’s reputa on and make their music more accessible to modern ears.

Here, I ask the reader to indulge me in a good-faith a empt to acquire a semblance of musical neutrality. Please consider these points:

Suspend all no ons about jazz – what it sounds like and who plays it – and begin to think of jazz in terms of musical intent, rather than a style, or even a genre.

Turn a en on to the fact that there was, back in the early 1900s, an unnamed type of dance music down in New Orleans that was born in the black neighborhoods.

Note that musicians who played this sort of music called it rag me, although it was not the formal piano rag me of Sco Joplin. Some said it sounded like “rag me played by ear.”

The music – with a variety of names – was slowly unleashed to the country by both black and white bands performing in cabarets and on the vaudeville circuit.

Introduc on of “Jass” to the General Public

In late April 1917, it was business as usual at the Victor Talking Machine Company. The furniture department in Camden, New Jersey, was busy turning out various models of the Victrola, the company’s signature record player. Also in Camden, the record pressing plant was churning out hundreds of newly-recorded discs. These included Victor’s famous Opera c “Red Seal” records; the most expensive and pres gious in the catalog. There were the blue-labeled tles by personali es such as Nora Bayes and Harry Lauder, as well as second- er classical vocalists such as Reinald Werrenrath. The black-labeled popular series – the lowest priced and best-selling – included songs from the latest stage musicals and current light or comic popular songs, mostly performed by in-house ar sts who made steady money as record makers.

The newly pressed discs were rushed to the stores, where talking machines and records were sold. Also on hand were copies of Victor’s May 1917 supplement, which announced all the new tles issued since the month previous. May’s issue sported a photo of one of its top selling ar sts on the cover, John McCormack, famous for his sensi ve rendi ons of sen mental Irish- nged songs. A turn of the page found the latest recording by Enrico Caruso, the most famous opera singer and recording ar st of the day. There were new tles by Frances Alda and the Elman String Quartet. Also, there were jaunty fox trots and peppy one-steps by Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra, Victor’s leading dance band.

Another turn of the page and suddenly there appears an instrumental quintet known as the Original Dixieland Jass Band. Although they are wearing suits, their pose is irreverent compared to the other rather prim photos; their posture is appalling. The unapologe c Victor copy reads:

The Jass Band is the very latest thing in the development in music. It has suffi cient power and penetra on to inject life into a mummy, and will keep ordinary human dancers on their feet ll

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 5

breakfast me. “Livery Stable Blues” in par cular we recommend because, on the principle that like cures like, this par cular variety will be a posi ve cure for the common or garden type of “blues.”

There was no men on of their home city.

Earlier in the year, at Victor’s new recording laboratory, located in New York at 46 West 38th Street, on the twel h fl oor, the typical assortment of performers had paraded into the impersonal recording room with the ominous gaping metal horn. Recordings were then made mechanically, or

Victor’s May 1917 supplement featured

popular Irish tenor John McCormack on the cover;

on page 16, readers encountered a photo of the Original Dixieland “Jass”

Band, accompanied by the release announcement

for their fi rst recording (courtesy John Secrist Collection, Recorded

Sound Collection, Library of Congress).

6 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

acous cally, without the aid of electricity. Singers, speakers, and instrumentalists faced the recording horn and carefully aimed to the sweet spot that would effi ciently vibrate the recording diaphragm and stylus. If there were to be sudden changes in dynamics, the ar st would have to adjust his or her proximity to the horn. For louder tones, one needed to pull away and vice versa. Performers complained bi erly, since this would alter the intended dynamics and poten ally obliterate any sense of musicianship. S ll, with pa ence and experience, successful recordings were made. On February 26, 1917, a er a supposedly disappoin ng audi on for Columbia Records, the fi ve-piece Original Dixieland Jass Band – ODJB – came to record.

Brief Background

Here is a capsule history of the ODJB, one that treads on very familiar turf: A quintet of New Orleans musicians, known as Stein’s Band from Dixie, arrived in Chicago in March of 1916 to fulfi ll an engagement at a dive known as Schiller’s Café. As the story goes, a drunken patron yelled out to the band, excitedly, “Jass it up, boys,” and New Orleans-style rag me got a new name. The tale, while fanciful, has a ring of truth to it: the word “jass,” with various spellings, had been kicking around the Barbary Coast and the southwest for at least a decade. Its connota ons were o en vulgar; its more polite meaning meant “with pep” or “lively.” The raucous band was a huge hit. Al Jolson, the famous star of Broadway, heard them while on tour in Chicago. Impressed, he sent his agent, Max Hart, over to listen. Hart listened and made plans for the band.

To New York

Shortly therea er, with a new name and some changes in personnel, the Original Dixieland Jass Band le for New York to begin an engagement at the far classier Reisenweber’s Restaurant. They consisted of corne st Nick LaRocca, Eddie Edwards on trombone, Larry Shields, clarinet, pianist Henry Ragas, and drummer Tony Sbarbaro. It is surmised that Max Hart got them their recording date at Victor.

The record caused a sensa on; it was unlike anything else in the Victor catalog, or on any other label, for that ma er. It had swagger and guts. There was also a sense of novelty, which no doubt helped sell the recording. One side featured animal imita ons depic ng a barnyard. The fl ipside was played at a breakneck tempo; each instrument contribu ng a diff erent, but complimentary, part. At the me, recordings rarely had any percussion featured, especially the bass drum, for it was easy to disrupt the delicate tracing of the groove. However, Victor’s chief recordist, Charles Sooy, went to great lengths to place the musicians so as to balance the level of all the instruments, and to not sacrifi ce Tony Sbarbaro’s wildly resonant bass drum.

Reac ons to the band and its fi rst record were in part nega ve, due to tempo, volume, and the fact that they were thought to be musically “discordant.” In actuality, the ODJB was hardly discordant. All the parts mesh harmonically in near-perfect counterpoint. However, the band’s boisterous approach disguised much of their musicianship.

As to the band’s name, Nick LaRocca said he never heard the word “jazz” un l he was in Chicago in 1916. Also, the ad copy writers at the Victor company seemed mys fi ed by the word. Shortly a er the February session, on March 29, Ernest John, the manager of Victor’s editorial department, wrote to Eddie Edwards:

As to the spelling, we were a li le uncertain ourselves, but we no ced that on your cards and it seemed to us that in an early adver sement of Reisenweber’s, the word was spelled JASS, so that on the poster we followed that spelling and in the catalog we also followed the spelling

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 7

given on the cards as the original Dixieland Jass Band. We did, however, rather side-step the issue by beginning our special supplement announcement in this way: “Spell it Jass, Jas, Jaz or Jazz – nothing can hurt a Jass Band.”1

That fi rst disc, Victor 18255, also made news in regards to the string of lawsuits that it created – almost immediately. Briefl y, the Victor company considered the tle “Livery Stable” too vulgar for its s ll prim and uninformed audience. Victor changed it to “Barnyard Blues” but failed to tell the label copy editors. Meanwhile, the band’s agent, Max Hart, copyrighted the song on the band’s behalf as “Barnyard Blues.” The record was released with the “Livery” tle, which was free and clear to be claimed, which it was by some disgruntled former ODJB members and associates. Meanwhile, someone at the music publishing fi rm Jos. W. Stern & Co. heard the record’s fl ipside, “Dixie Jass Band One-Step,” and recognized its trio as a por on of a Stern Publica on, “That Teasin’ Rag,” wri en by black composer and pianist Joe Jordan. The labels were then modifi ed to refl ect the interpola on, avoiding any further trouble.

Suddenly, within weeks a er the band’s fi rst recording became available, ensembles calling themselves “jass” or “jazz” bands were popping up everywhere – in cafes, restaurants, and on recordings. The demand and supply could not be vanquished by the nega ve feelings and comments of those who could not accept the new music; it was brash, loud, and discordant. Also, it was immoral—dangerous to the dancing youth. The word “jass” at that me was as much a verb to describe what was being done to music, as it was a noun. In either case, it implied noise and novelty, and missed the essence of the ODJB and New Orleans dance music.

Some of the comments were back-handed compliments, such as a newspaper ad for the band’s engagement at Reisenweber’s that adver sed “Untuneful Harmonists Playing ‘Peppery’ Melodies,” as if “untuneful” had suddenly become a drawing point.2

Mimics

Tin Pan Alley composers began cranking out songs, most of them rather inane, about the ODJB and their music. One, rather signifi cantly, was recorded six weeks prior to the ODJB’s fi rst Victor date. “That Funny Jas [sic] Band from Dixieland,” composed and wri en by Henry I. Marshall and Gus Kahn, recorded on January 12, 1917, featured the minstrel dialect team of Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan. There is li le in the way of instrumental illustra on as to what exactly “jas” is: the house orchestra goes into an instrumental rendering of the song’s chorus with lots of siren eff ects and loud percussion, giving the impression of a rather chao cally good me. Then, the duo breaks into spoken dialogue. Harlan, in the guise of a black woman, asks Collins, “What is a jas band?” Collins: “A jas band am essen ally diff erent from the generality of bands.” And to illustrate, the various members of the house orchestra

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8 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

play a few discordant tones, winding up with a militaris c bugle call accompanied by a loud snare drum and cymbal.

Collins and Harlan and the Victor Orchestra had be er luck with their explana on four months later, when they recorded Lew Hays and William J. Hart’s “Everybody’s Jazzin’ It.” Here, with exhorta ons from Collins and Harlan, the orchestra leaps into a full-blown caricaturized imita on of the ODJB. This is complete with loud, sloppy trombone glissandos, squealing clarinets, and seemingly out-of- me wild percussion eff ects. In the midst of this lampoon there is melody present: some mes the rather loopy trombone doubles a distant cornet. However, there is no intelligible second or third voice. Nor does the percussion emphasize or refl ect anything about the song’s melody, let alone the manner in which it is being played. All good fun, but the parody foreshadows some unfortunate reality that was

to come.

Listening to and Understanding the ODJB

The Victor company promoted the ODJB discs as dance records; there was no copy anywhere about jass or jazz being listening music, and listening is where the ODJB runs into trouble, both during their day and in retrospect. Historians, cri cs, and jazz fans have not universally praised the ODJB. The cri cs have complained about their loudness, that they were anachronis c, and that they played way too fast. In a recent ar cle in Slate, Michael J. West provides some specifi cs:

… “Livery Stable Blues,” became the hit, with its novelty “animal sounds” hook. But its rhythm is s ff : stolid 4/4 me, brass and piano playing even eighths with li le varia on. If there’s improvisa on present, it’s hidden behind verba m repe ons. “Dixieland Jass Band One-Step,” which became a standard, is looser and more playful—but s ll rote and unimprovised.3

West seems to be holding this performance up against a masterpiece by King Oliver, or maybe the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The band’s, and par cularly LaRocca’s, rhythm is anything but s ff or stolid. True, it does not swing with the ease of a hot jazz classic of the 1920s, but compared to recordings by the ODJB’s soon-to-be compe tors, their rhythmic concept is well developed: loose and fl exible. Also, West ignores the near perfect counterpoint: three divergent voices complemen ng each other harmonically as well as rhythmically. LaRocca’s melody lead is decorated expertly by Larry Shields’s upper countermelody, and is supported by Edwards’s rhythmic punctua on and lower-voice countermelodies. Their counterpoint sounded extemporaneous and was near-perfect. LaRocca later quipped, “I cut the cloth, Shields adds the lace, and Edwards sews it up.” More to the point: as a result of the interac on between the three voices, combined with the steady propulsion of piano and drums, the music moves forward. Each instrument contributes an important piece to the whole.

West also complains about a lack of improvisa on. But he does not take into account that this

Courtesy Library of Congress Na onal Jukebox

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 9

tenet of jazz performance was fairly unimportant to the fi rst genera on of jazz players. Instead, a set melody, rou ne, or varia on, was worked out, memorized, and repeated faithfully, if not iden cally, each me. A marvelous piece of suppor ng evidence is Louis Armstrong’s 1924 copyright lead sheet of “Cornet Chop Suey,” which he recorded just over two years later, in a near-exact rendering of his manuscript.

The band’s frequent use of one-step tempi – the most popular dance of the me – may be the largest strike against accessibility; it creates an air of novelty, even caricature. Involving only one step per beat, the one-step was performed with two beats to a measure, and fast, around 126 beats per minute. Also, it was characterized by strong upbeats. LaRocca recalled in later life that the band had been playing in the slower rag me-oriented two-step tempo, but they adapted, at dancers’ requests, to the more up-to-date and smoother tempo; hence, the rather furious pace found on many of the ODJB recordings. However, the band’s version of the one-step was without the marked upbeats that gave the music li . Instead, it comes off as top heavy.

The ODJB’s musical quali es shine when contrasted with recordings by their contemporaries, who were simply pop-up imitators. In June 1917, Earl Fuller, the orchestra leader at the famous Rector’s Restaurant on Broadway, began recording with his “Famous Jazz Band,” for Victor. The results were an obvious and tasteless a empt to mimic the ODJB’s overall mbre, without any of the harmonic or rhythmic touches. Their September 10 recording of “Li’l Liza Jane,” sounds not unlike the parody by the Victor Orchestra on Collins and Harlan’s “Everybody’s Jazzin’ It.” The only diff erence is that the Fuller group is not joking around.

Whereas the individual voices of the ODJB fi t together in an interconnec ng counterpoint, the Fuller Band relies on unisons and eff ects. While ODJB corne st Nick LaRocca plays a rolling style with a smooth and easy subdivision of the beat, Fuller’s corne st, Walter Kahn, is truly s ff and could easily be mistaken for a parody. Eddie Edwards’s trombone provides rhythmic thrust as well as o en zeroing in on the harmony note that best balances the melody. Harry Raderman, Fuller’s trombonist, plays dead-end glissandos that do not move along the musical proceedings. Larry Shields provides lithe and fl uid clarinet lines that perfectly decorate the lead, while Ted Lewis, clarine st in the Fuller organiza on, whines and cries.

Bluin’ the Blues

Earl Fuller’s band is not an isolated example of the ineff ec ve mimicry that plagued much of what was called “jazz.” Nearly every ensemble on record, described as a “jass” or “jazz” band prior to 1922, fails at capturing the essence of the ODJB or New Orleans-style dance music. That is not to say that some, if not much, of this material is interes ng. Groups like the Frisco Jazz Band (Edison) and Wilbur Sweatman’s Jazz Band (Pathe and Columbia) are fascina ng examples of how the remnants of rag me were being transformed into something acceptable to the dancing public. S ll, it is nearly always self-conscious and s ff .

Courtesy Library of Congress Na onal Jukebox

10 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

A good illustra on is the ODJB’s June 25, 1918, recording of “Bluin’ the Blues,” a performance replete with panache, swagger, and guts that gives lie to their alleged s ff ness and stolid approach. If one cannot grasp the compelling impact of this recording, then a quick listen to some other versions of this tune may help do the trick.

A contemporaneous Edison recording by Lopez and Hamilton’s Kings of Harmony has the cornet and clarinet playing in unison for much of the performance. Occasionally, the clarinet ventures away from the lead, but never far and always quick to return. The trombonist, somewhat under recorded, can be heard copying some of Eddie Edwards’s work, but in a s ff and unconvincing manner. In fact, the rhythmic feel here merely highlights the ODJB’s authen city and sincerity. A circa June 1919 vocal recording, made for Genne , by New Orleans minstrel Al Bernard, is more convincing, thanks to Bernard’s apparent – if limited – understanding of the genre. However, his accompaniment is uninten onally comical. The overly precise, ricky- ck introduc on sounds undeniably juvenile in concept.

A somewhat be er rendi on was recorded by Wilbur Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band for Columbia, the following December. Sweatman’s version actually sounds suitable for dancing; there is a sense of fl ow to the ensemble. S ll, there is quite a bit of unison by the cornet and clarinet, rather than harmonic interac on. However, the short solo breaks are embarrassing.

Grappling with a Defi ni on

It seems that, by the prolifera on of these inept imita ons, the compelling nature of New Orleans-style dance music was lost on a large number of professional dance orchestra musicians and their public. It was a mystery to all – even those who played the music. On May 3, Victor’s editor Ernest John sent Eddie Edwards another le er, which read:

We have been asked to furnish the defi ni on of the Jass Band. What we want to know is where the word came from, and just exactly what cons tutes a Jass Band.We have already enough informa on to enable us to write adver sing ma er on the subject, but what we want now is a li le specifi c, and above all things, accurate informa on. If you can help us in this respect or refer us to any authority on the subject, we shall be very much obliged to you, and we would urge also that you let us have that informa on at your earliest convenience.4 Edwards’s response, if any, is not known. However, his statement from the previous March to a

New York Globe reporter will suffi ce, if not confuse:

A Jass Band is composed of oboes, clarinets, cornets, trombones, banjos and always a drum…But the music is a ma er of the ear and not of technique. One carries the melody and the others do what they please. Some play counter melodies, some play freak noises, and some just play. I can’t tell you how. You ‘got to feel’ Jass. The me is syncopated. Jass I think means a jumble [sic].5

The situa on was no be er a few years later. In the October 1923 edi on of Jacobs’ Orchestra Monthly, the “New York Gossip” column featured a sec on tled “Defi ni ons of jazz by a number of New York’s leading musicians.” Here are some of the off erings, none of which equate “jazz” with harmony, rhythm, counterpoint, or New Orleans:

• Arthur Wedel (Orchestra leader for several seasons with Sir Harry Lauder) “Jazz is a

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 11

conglomera on of noises, very few players know what they are playing.”• Cliff ord E. Ridgley (bandmaster of the 69th Regiment Band) “Jazz is a disease. War’s a ermath.

Curable by me.”• Freddie Buhl (New York’s 100% sure-fi re bass drummer, whose work is the model as well as the

envy of his compe tor) “Jazz, between you and me and the lamppost, doesn’t mean anything. It is the most disgraceful music you can listen to. It sounds like a lot of fi sh peddlers.”

• Philip Lemlein (former leader of the N. Y. Hippodrome orchestra) “Jazz, that’s easy. When a clarinet player, say ten years ago, happened to squeak on a note, he was called ro en. Now he can’t squeak enough. That’s jazz.”

• Julius Rosenberg (Associated with celebrated restauranteur Louis Sherry, in this city and Newport R.I.) “Jazz is a disease in the public’s mind to keep them moving. Real dancers always prefer legi mate tempo without discordant harmony. The publishers are to blame for such monstrosi es.”

• A. E. Simmert (pianist with a range from blues to symphonies) “Jazz is, – let me think a minute. Cacophony, nothing but a discordant jamboree, a dessert of overtones.”

• Louis Roeder (formerly musical director at the Winter Garden) “Jazz is an irregular instrumenta on. For instance, take a n whistle, a banjo and a drum, put them to work, that’s jazz.”

• Jack Halloway (trombone player with the phonograph concerns and society leaders) “Jazz is a momentary craze. Every member or the orchestra burlesques.”6

Chronology

It is apparent that the word “jazz” described diff erent things to diff erent people. Bands like Earl Fuller’s and Wilbur Sweatman’s did not play in a style that would survive as recognizable jazz. The ODJB’s music was conversa onal and musical. It may have featured some novelty eff ects, but its essence was that of New Orleans dance music. The following chronology begins with some precursors of New Orleans jazz on record and carries on through to the fi rst recordings of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. By listening to these recorded examples, one can compare the ODJB’s sense of musicality and authen city with others who off ered genuine hints of jazz-to-come – not novelty – on pre-1917 recordings. These are examples of the informal black and southern dialect that gave popular music a looser and more conversa onal feel than conven onal pop music of the me.

It is important to note that while jazz and the phonograph and record industry grew up together, jazz itself did not develop along the same meline as did jazz on record. A par cularly dated-sounding style from 1920 may have been preceded in me by something far more comfortable to modern ears. By the same token, the ODJB playing a compara vely jerky sounding one-step in 1917 does not represent what may have come before. Keep in mind that jazz changed and developed as dance styles changed, and vice versa.

The Chronology

• Ca. 1903 – Buddy Bolden records informally for Oscar Zahn (Not extant)• Ca. 1904 – Wilbur Sweatman records “Maple Leaf Rag” in Minneapolis (Not extant) • 4/19/1911 – Gene Greene records “King of the Bungaloos” for Victor. Greene, a vaudeville

performer, known as “The King of Rag me,” specialized in what might be described as “scat singing,” which he did with a marvelous looseness and swing. h ps://www.youtube.com/

12 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

watch?v=icVCwOX8VyE • 12/29/1913 – Europe’s Society Orchestra begins recording for Victor. “Castle House Rag” -

h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weDlcnAKeaM • May 1916 – Gus Haenschen records in St. Louis for Columbia Personal Records. “Sunset Medley”

is an astonishing example of rag me cum jazz, recorded prior to the ODJB. It can be heard on the CD release “Stomp and Swerve” on Archeophone Records. h p://archeophone.com/catalogue/stomp-and-swerve/

• Late 1916 – Wilbur Sweatman records “Down Home Rag” for Emerson Records (h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzvBnsG5bM4 )

• February 26, 1917 – ODJB records for the Victor Talking Machine Company

Vaudevillian Gene Greene with his spouse and stage partner, in formal attire (center)

and in one of their stage costumes (courtesy

Jim Walsh Collection, Recorded Sound

Collection, Library of Congress).

courtesy David Sager

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 13

• February 28, 1917 – Wilbur Sweatman records his composi on “Boogie Rag” as a “trial” for Victor. (Not extant)

• Ca. 3/1917 – Wilbur Sweatman & his Jass Band records “Boogie Rag” for Pathe.• Late 1918 – First recordings of the Louisiana Five, with Alcide “Yellow” Nunez. These are a

fascina ng alterna ve to the ODJB recordings; with no cornet present, Nunez plays lead on the clarinet. Two of the fi ve were actually from Louisiana.

• Late 1918 – The Original New Orleans Jazz Band makes fi rst recordings. This was a band composed largely of New Orleans musicians, imported to play at the Alamo Café in Harlem, New York. Its leader, a New Yorker, was pianist and future comic Jimmy Durante. They played with a loose and vigorous style.

• Late 1919 – New Orleans Trombonist Tom Brown begins recording in New York. Representa ve tles in “Rose of Spain” and “Can You tell?” by Ray Miller’s Black and White Melody Boys. Brown

played in a manner not unlike Edward “Kid” Ory: loose, swinging, and insouciant. • 8/10/1920 – Mamie Smith records for OKeh with her Jazz Hounds. h ps://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=m5YwFm1gvR0 • 1921 – Precursors to the Original Memphis Five begin long series of recordings. They largely

smoothed and modernized the ODJB’s style. “Shake It and Break It” by Ladd’s Black Aces - h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYwcQJhVFAg

• 6/1922 – Kid Ory’s Sunshine Band records for Nordskog/Sunshine. These are considered to be the fi rst jazz recordings by a black New Orleans band. An interes ng point is that the band’s clarine st, Dink Johnson, later recalled that he a empted to imitate the ODJB’s clarine st, Larry

The Original New Orleans Jazz Band. Le to right: Johnny Stein, Frank L’Hotak, Frank Chris an, Achille Baquet, Jimmy Durante (courtesy Mark Berresford).

14 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

Shields. “Society Blues” h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX53KdRhOVI and “Ory’s Creole Trombone” h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUeTcqvvCxg

Now, at about this juncture, young fans and musicians were beginning to discern honestly played jazz from the Earl Fullers, etc. Jazz, as a style of music, was beginning to be accepted as an art.

• 8/19/1922 – Friars Society Orchestra (NORK) makes fi rst recordings for Genne • 4/6/1923 – King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong begins recording

Conclusion

When asked the defi ni on of “jazz,” or rather, “jass,” ODJB trombonist Eddie Edwards said “jumble.” Indeed, to many hearing for the fi rst me, in 1916 at Schiller’s Café, it may have sounded like a jumble. Furthermore, the fast-paced events leading up to and following their fi rst recording may have felt like a jumble; as it does in retrospect. But when taking me to sort out their music and compare it side-by-side with their contemporaries and imitators, the jumbled picture grows clearer. While novelty-imbued and raucous, their music was deliberate, rehearsed, and well-executed. To those not musically astute, it would seem a jumble. And, whereas the ODJB did not invent jazz, nor were they the fi rst to introduce it up north, they did create it for the fi rst me ever on a phonograph record, one-hundred years ago. They deserve our apprecia on.

Links to other recordings referenced

“That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland” h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/5370

“Everybody’s Jazzin’ It” h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/5639

“Livery Stable Blues” h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/4668

“Dixie Jass Band One-Step” h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/4669

“Bluin’ the Blues” (ODJB) h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/4635

“Li’l Liza Jane” h p://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/6186

“Bluin’ the Blues” (Sweatman) h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvJoCfdSQgM

“Bluin’ the Blues” (Lopez and Hamilton)h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqHgTVbds

“Bluin’ the Blues” (Bernard) h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ8uIkHAHhE

Endnotes1 Le er from Ernest John to Eddie Edwards, March 29 , 1917 (Eddie Edwards Collec on, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University). 2 Adver sement, New York Tribune, February 2, 1917, 9.3 Michael J. West, “Trumpe ng Alterna ve Facts,” Slate, February 23, 2017. 4 Le er from Ernest John to Eddie Edwards, May 3, 1917 (Eddie Edwards Collec on, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University). 5 S. Jay Kaufman, New York Globe & Commercial Adver ser, March 14, 1917.6 Jacobs’ Orchestra Monthly, October 1923.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 15

How Did the ODJB Learn to Play “Livery Stable Blues?” By Vic Hobson

It has long been known that it was by chance that the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB) became the fi rst musicians to record jazz. Freddie Keppard and the Original Creole Orchestra were off ered a recording deal in 1916, but turned it down.1 This was probably because the money was insuffi cient to compensate for Keppard’s concern that other bands would steal his stuff .2 This was a valid concern. Genera ons of musicians have learned to play jazz by imita ng what they heard on records. Corne st Jimmy McPartland remembered, “What we used to do was put the record on – one of the

Rhythm Kings’, naturally – play a few bars, then all get our notes. We’d have to tune our instruments up to the record machine, to the pitch, and go ahead with a few notes. Then stop! A few more bars of the record, each guy would pick out his notes and boom! we would go on and play it. Two bars, or four bars, or eight – we would get in on each phrase and then all play it.”3 While this was an op on for later musicians who wanted to learn to play jazz, it was not an op on for the ODJB: there were no previous recordings of jazz to inform them. This raises the ques on of how the ODJB learned to play jazz. One way to open up this ques on is to look at how they learned to play “Livery Stable Blues.”

It has been widely believed that the ODJB learned to play jazz by imita ng the black bands in New Orleans.4 But, to reproduce the contrapuntal nature of early New Orleans jazz by ear without the aid of recordings would have been quite a feat. It would, perhaps, not be too diffi cult for a musician to learn the melody of a tune as played by another band, but it would be rather more diffi cult for the other instruments to individually pick off the countermelodies and obbligatos played by the other instruments and then collec vely reassemble the parts without recordings. This problem was not confi ned to the ODJB. Other bands played contrapuntal jazz at this me. The ability to construct countermelodies and

An early photo of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, uniformed in dusters and bandanas. Back row, le to right: Tony Sbarboro, Henry Ragas. Front row, le to right: Eddie Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Larry Shields .

(Eddie Edwards Collec on, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

16 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

obbligatos that harmonized the tunes they played was, un l recently, not well understood. In Crea ng Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues (2013), I argued that New Orleans jazz counterpoint was the product of the applica on of the principles of barbershop harmony to the instruments of a jazz band.5 Just a few years ago, this seemed controversial; however, the Barbershop Quartet Society recently acknowledged Lynn Abbo ’s early work on the African American origins of barbershop harmony, and musicological research has confi rmed his observa on that the close harmony of barbershop “was integral to the crystalliza on of the famous ‘blue note’.”6 The ques on is no longer whether barbershop prac ce infl uenced the development of New Orleans counterpoint but, rather, in what ways did it infl uence bands and musicians of all races? In par cular, for the purposes of this essay, how did barbershop prac ce infl uence the ODJB?

The Wri ng of “Livery Stable Blues”

When he was young, ODJB corne st Nick LaRocca worked at the French Opera House in New Orleans, and was a racted to what he called “contra-melodies” in the songs he heard there. He explained, “You listen to ‘Livery Stable Blues’; you’ll see what I mean. Take each instrument alone, and you got three melodies in there.”7 “Take the trombone apart and you’ll have a melody, take the clarinet, you’ll have a melody, take the cornet, you’ll have a melody, and they’re three dis nct melodies working together.”8 LaRocca described himself as an “ignorant scholar” of music, but despite his limited formal educa on in the subject he recognized the contrapuntal nature of the music he performed.9

The ini al controversy about “Livery Stable Blues” had to do with its authorship. The commercial success of the recording led to a copyright dispute. LaRocca and the ODJB published a version with Leo Feist in New York, under the tle “Barnyard Blues.” Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez issued a version with Roger Graham Music Publishing in Chicago, tled “Livery Stable Blues.”10 Both claimed to have published the original version of the Victor 18255 recording by the ODJB. During the court case, all par es were ques oned under oath about their composi onal prac ces. LaRocca’s explana on was, “Well a valve in my cornet got stuck and it made a funny noise. I experimented with the bray or neigh, and fi nally worked out my livery stable melody.”11 Trombonist Eddie Edwards seemed to support this as he remembered a conversa on about how LaRocca had put a horse whinny into a “blues number.”12 Clarine st Larry Shields was asked about how the band learned new tunes when he was working with Tom Brown’s Band in Chicago. He answered, “They played it over,” by which he meant, “The whole band. . . One fellow would come on the job with a new song and he played it off and we followed.”13

This in turn raised the ques on of how the musicians followed if they were to do more than simply double the melody. Pianist Henry Ragas tried to clarify this and only added to the confusion. “I made the accompaniment and he [LaRocca] told me exactly my part.”14 Understandably confused, the a orney tried a diff erent line of ques oning: “Was the composi on in ques on the same number the fi rst me you played it, as the tenth day in your rehearsals?” Ragas responded, “We played it a li le be er . . . the runs were be er.” This led to ques oning about how the runs were improved. Ragas told the lawyer that it was LaRocca who had made the improvement to the runs for the clarinet part, the trombone, and the piano, but that LaRocca did not play any of these instruments. This prompted his interrogator to ask, “How could he instruct the piano player or the trombone player if he didn’t play those instruments?” Ragas said, “He just hummed it to us.”15 This seems to explain what Ragas meant when he said that LaRocca had given him exactly what he wanted Ragas to play – he did this vocally – and then Ragas interpreted this at the piano and, in his words, “made the accompaniment.”

A similar method of developing countermelodies also was used by Nunez and Lopez. Their version of “Livery Stable Blues,” they claimed, was based upon “More Power Blues,” composed by Ray Lopez, and was fi rst played in Tom Brown’s Band when they were in Chicago.16 Ray Lopez’s son Bert

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 17

recalled his father discussing how they played. He said, “Someone would come up with an improvised passage and they would work it into a sort of harmonious counterpoint behind the lead, who would be improvising off the melody.”17 Whoever was responsible for the original idea, the arranging method of both Tom Brown’s Band and the ODJB appears to have been similar: countermelodies would be improvised with reference to the main melody. Much of the tes mony given in court related to defi ning a blues. Eddie Edwards, who was the most musically literate of the ODJB, was asked to explain what was a “blues number?” He described it as a “Fox-trot with a slow and lazy like yawning with no direct harmony, sort of freaky harmony.”18 This drew a en on to a feature of early New Orleans jazz that is not readily apparent today. When the ODJB fi rst recorded, their harmony was heard by contemporaries as strange and discordant. Today it is diffi cult to hear it that way. Careful listening and transcrip on along with contemporaneous sheet music

confi rms how early blues and jazz harmony deviated from today’s standardized, and o en simplifi ed, harmonic formula ons. The introduc on to “Livery Stable Blues” (example 1) provides a clear example of the complexity of early New Orleans jazz harmony. The fi rst chord of “Livery Stable Blues” is a chord of E-fl at. This chord is constructed in the typical way that a barbershop quartet voices a major chord. The lowest note, what would be the bass voice in a barbershop quartet, is on the tonic note of E-fl at; the next note up (the baritone voice) sings a fi h above the bass.19 The lower note on the treble stave (the lead voice in barbershop terminology) sings the tonic and the tenor voice sings a third above the lead (G). The subsequent chords are formed because the baritone and tenor voices both ascend a minor third and then descend chroma cally back to their original note to cadence back onto the tonic chord in the second measure. This is known as a swipe in barbershop terminology. The opening measures of the

Example 1: Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez, “Livery Stable Blues” introduc on (1917)

Example 2: “Sweet Adeline,” from Barber Shop Ballads (1925)

18 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

barbershop favorite “Sweet Adeline” demonstrate how a minor third swipe is used in a barbershop song (example 2).20

There are few transcrip ons of African American part-song from the nineteenth century; however, there is strong evidence that this type of harmonic formula on was sung by African Americans in Florida in the 1880s. At that me, the English composer Frederick Delius was living on an orange planta on at Solano Grove, just outside of Jacksonville. Delius recalled: “I would sit on my verandah in the darkness of the evening, and I would hear from afar the singing of the Negroes. It seemed to harmonize wonderfully with the glorious natural surroundings. . . Although I had grown up with classical

music, a whole new world now opened up to me.”21 Delius was inspired to write the Florida Suite (example 3), in which he tried to capture the music that he heard.

Although example 3 is in a diff erent key, we fi nd the same tonic-dominant, tonic-diminished (or one of its inversions), and subdominant minor chords that we fi nd in example 2. None of these chords are common in conven onal European harmoniza on; however they are commonplace in barbershop harmony. In his 1911 opera, Treemonisha, Sco Joplin used a similar cadence to depict the singing of a group of nineteenth-century black North Texas corn huskers (example 4).

Treemonisha is in part autobiographical, in that its heroine, Treemonisha, was, like Joplin, born just a er the Civil War and raised in the State of Arkansas, northeast of the town of Texarkana. It is the only opera in existence about the reconstruc on era that was wri en by a black man who actually lived

Example 3: Frederick Delius, “Daybreak,” from the Florida Suite (1888)

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 19

through the period.22 What is more, Joplin told an interviewer three years before it was published that Treemonisha would contain “music similar to that sung by the negroes [sic] during slavery days.”23 It is clear from this that Joplin was a emp ng to represent the music he had heard around him as a child.

The quintessen al barbershop chord is a major or dominant chord on the fl a ed sixth of the key. In measure three of “Livery Stable Blues” (example 1) there is a chord on the fl a ed-sixth of the scale of the key, in this instance C-fl at. The barbershop chord is typically formed by the lead and bass voice again remaining sta c as the tenor voice descends by a semitone and the baritone voice ascends by a semitone. The more fundamental barbershop chords result from the smallest change in notes in the tenor and baritone voices. A varia on on this harmony which also results from no more than a semitone movement in the tenor and baritone voice is the tonic diminished chord. These are the two most

fundamental cadences in barbershop harmony. When they are combined, they give rise to a dominant chord on the fl a ed-sixth note of the scale (example 5).

The barbershop chord introduces three notes to the harmony that would not usually be found in conven onal European prac ce: the fl a ed (or blues) third, G-fl at; the fl a ed-sixth, C-fl at; and A-natural, the fl a ed-fi h.24 This is the kind of “freaky harmony” that Eddie Edwards noted in his defi ni on of the blues.

This “freaky harmony” is not confi ned to the introduc on of “Livery Stable Blues” (example 1); it is also found in the fi rst strain (example 6).25 The chords were not given in the original sheet music, but once they are wri en in, Edwards’s observa on is confi rmed. The opening measures are a series of freaky chords that result from barbershop cadences between the tonic and the tonic diminished chord. The fi rst three measures of the opening strain off er a repeated blue note melody (F-sharp, G-natural, and E-fl at). The note of F-sharp is the fl a ed/minor third (or blues third), and the G-natural is the major third. A melody that has both the minor and major third had been referred to as a “blue note melody” for some fi ve years before the recording of “Livery Stable Blues.”26 Another way of interpre ng this blue note melody is as the note choices of the tenor voice in a barbershop cadence. This is the line that the tenor voice sings, or the instrument that takes this role in this cadence, and if the baritone voice also descends a semitone (as in a fundamental barbershop cadence), this gives rise to the diminished chord (example 7).

Judge Carpenter, who presided over the “Livery Stable Blues” copyright dispute, correctly

Example 4: Sco Joplin, “The Corn Huskers,” from Treemonisha (1911)

Example 5: The Barbershop Chord

20 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

recognized that the blues melody was not unique to the ODJB’s recording of “Livery Stable Blues” and decided, “Neither Mr. LaRocca and his associates nor Mr. Nunez and his associates conceived the idea of this melody.” Accordingly, Judge Carpenter placed “Livery Stable Blues” in the public domain.27

Although resolving the ques on of who wrote the melody was the central issue before the court, in many ways the authorship of the countermelodies and resultant harmony is equally, if not more, interes ng. It seems reasonable to conclude that the musicians associated with the ODJB and Tom Brown’s band learned to play their obbligato parts in much the same way that other New Orleans bands did. They applied the principles of barbershop voice leading to their instruments, and it is very likely that Nick LaRocca played a leading role in teaching the members of the band how to do this. The circumstances around the copyright dispute of “Livery Stable Blues” do suggest that LaRocca was more familiar with these prac ces than the other musicians, but it may be that he was unaware of the barbershop prac ces behind the lines he sang to the members of his band. LaRocca confi rmed that he was aware of black music: “It’s been said that we played many Negro melodies; that is true . . . We had special arrangements on them; we used to get up – we didn’t sing, but we used to holler, sing like we were – try to sing it. In other words, it pleased the public; they liked what we were doing, and they’d ask for the same thing over and we’d play them.”28 LaRocca also said that the ODJB played melodies by

Example 6: Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez, “Livery Stable Blues” First Strain (1917)

Example 7: The Tonic-Diminished Cadence

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 21

African American composers, including “Sister Kate,” “Some of These Days,” and “Darktown Stru er’s Ball:” “Sure, we played colored melodies. We also played melodies that were wri en by white people, but we didn’t sing the white people’s melodies. You’ll ask me why. I don’t know, because . . . they were made diff erent.”29 There does appear to be, in these interviews with LaRocca, some acknowledgment of dis nc ve features in African American song and also some understanding of a rela onship between what they sang and how they played.

There is no direct evidence to date that LaRocca ever sang in a barbershop quartet. This raises the ques on of how he learned to sing these countermelodies. According to interviews he began making up countermelodies when he was a child: “At that me I didn’t know anything—I could show you on the piano how easy it is for me to get a melody, and many people say, ‘How you put them together?’ Well, to me they come just like they come out of the air; all I need is four notes or fi ve notes to start on and a chord construc on to follow, and I can make a melody. And that’s not only now; I’ve been doing this since I’ve been nine, ten years old.”30

One tune that he remembered from his school days was “The Holy City” (example 8): “In my early training at school, at the closing exercise they had a number they called ‘The Holy City.’ Well I had learned this number and during the – Mr. Socolla was the man who taught us how to go through our li le parts in the play – and the whole group was singing it. I was in the back singing, and I was making contra-melody on this tune, and he called me out the front and says I want you to sing this. And I got out there and I had stage fright, and I couldn’t sing a thing, I couldn’t remember what I did, but he thought I did something great that it would sound good if I would come out in the front and do it.”31 It seems LaRocca not only had a good ear for crea ng countermelodies, but was also aware of the resul ng harmonies, as he recognized that “The Holy City” has the same basic chord structure as a twelve-bar

Example 8: Stephen Adams and Frederick E. Weatherly, “The Holy City” (1892)

22 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

blues, but in an eight-bar form. This led him to conclude: “Now that’s, that chord construc on is not from Africa. That is, the chord construc on shortened is the chord construc on of the blues.”32

“The Holy City” is quoted in a number of early blues. David Sager wrote in the sleeve notes to King Oliver, Off the Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings that the second strain of “Canal Street Blues” is “a paraphrasing of Stephen Adams’ and Frederick E. Weatherly’s ‘The Holy City,’ an 1892 sacred song hit.”33 Clarine st Johnny Dodds also quoted the “Holy City” in his solo on “Chimes Blues,” which is another Oliver composi on.34

On balance, it seems unlikely that the ODJB could have learned to imitate the complex harmonies of black New Orleans bands simply by copying what they heard them play. In order to reproduce this type of harmony they, or at least LaRocca, would have to have been familiar with the swipes and voice leading of barbershop harmony. By the me LaRocca was learning to play his instrument, barbershop harmony was popular across all race lines.35 In 1893, the “Utopian Quartet” of Bellevue, Nebraska, consisted of “one Indian, one Negro, and two Caucasians.”36 There are even reports of Chinese barbers in Hawaii singing barbershop in 1902.37 This may, in part, explain why it has been so diffi cult for jazz researchers to state with any degree of certainty the racial origins of jazz. Given that the harmonic principles that underscore the music were the common property of all races in the United States by the me that jazz emerged, it has not been possible to dis nguish the music’s racial origins. A deeper understanding of the development of barbershop harmony does hold out the prospect of understanding more clearly those aspects of jazz that were derived from African American prac ce and those that were not.

In 1922 Carl Engel, chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, wrote an ar cle tled “Jazz: A Musical Discussion,” in which he made an interes ng observa on: “The people – who in the beginning had known but one thing: melody, fastened upon a primi ve and weak harmonic structure of ‘Barbershop’ chords – the people, I say, who had stepwise advanced from melody and rhythms to harmony, lastly discovered counterpoint. And the result of this last discovery is jazz. In other words, jazz is rag- me, plus ‘Blues,’ plus orchestral polyphony.”38

There are s ll some dedicated advocates who refuse to accept that the ODJB were not the “creators” of jazz as claimed. I think it safe to conclude that the ODJB were not the fi rst to apply barbershop prac ces to their instruments. There is clear evidence of the same prac ces being applied to instruments during the fi rst decade of the twen eth century.39 There are also those who dismiss the ODJB as plagiarists: simple imitators of African American jazz. This view is also too simplis c. The ODJB were among the people who developed jazz counterpoint by applying barbershop principles to their instruments. In this sense, they did create jazz that was their own. This seems to confi rm two things that up to now have been conten ous: the ODJB may not have been original but they were authen c. If, as the evidence appears to show, they were directly applying barbershop principles in the construc on of their obbligatos and countermelodies, they were applying the same principles used by the black bands of New Orleans. In this sense, the ODJB were as authen c as the black bands. On the other hand, as this was the same method used by other New Orleans bands, the ODJB were therefore not original. I would argue that, a er a century of misunderstanding, the ODJB should be reassessed for their contribu on to jazz on their own merit.

Endnotes

1 Frederic Ramsey and Charles Edward Smith, Jazzmen, 1939 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 22.2 Neil Leonard, Jazz and the White Americans: The Acceptance of a New Art Form, 1962 (London: Jazz Book Club, 1964), 96; Lawrence Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 175.3 Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff , eds., Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It, 1955 (New

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 23

York: Dover Publica ons, 1966), 120.4 In his review of H. O Brunn’s The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which uncri cally accepts the ODJB as the “creators” of jazz, Larry Gara wrote, “Most serious of all, there is no men on of the Negro infl uence on jazz or on white musicians” (Larry Gara, “Review: The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band by H. O. Brunn,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 44, no. 1 [Autumn 1960], 75). Richard Waterman argued, “If Brunn had men oned, even in passing, that LaRocca and his men were highly successful white imitators and popularizers of a Negro musical style that had been long a-building, his book would have shown some element of balance” (Richard A. Waterman, “Review: The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band by H. O. Brunn,” Western Folklore, vol. 21, no 2 [April 1962], 122-23). 5 Vic Hobson, Crea ng Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014).6 Lynn Abbo and Doug Seroff , “’They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Com-mercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” American Music, vol. 14, no. 4 (1996): 404; Hobson, Crea ng Jazz Counterpoint.7 Dominick James “Nick” LaRocca interviewed by Richard B. Allen, June 2, 1958 (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane Univer-sity).8 Dominick James “Nick” LaRocca interviewed by Richard B. Allen, May 21, 1958 (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane Uni-versity).9 Ibid.10 Katherine Murphy Maskell, “Who Wrote Those ‘Livery Stable Blues’? Authorship Rights in Jazz and Law as Evi-denced in Hart et al. v. Graham” (Masters Thesis, Ohio State University, 2012).11 “At Last! Court Finds Man Who First Jazzed,” Chicago American, October 12, 1917, 2, as quoted in Maskell, 39. 12 Edwin B. Edwards, Interrogatory Transcript, 6, October 2, 1917, Hart et al. v. Graham (N. D. Ill. 1917), Case File E913; U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, as quoted in Maskell, 71-72.13 Lawrence Shields, Interrogatory Transcript, 5-6, October 2, 1917, Hart et al. v. Graham (N. D. Ill. 1917), Case File E914; U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, as quoted in Maskell, 58.14 Henry Ragas, Interrogatory Transcript, 8, October 2, 1917, Hart et al. v. Graham (N. D. Ill. 1917), Case File E914; US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, as quoted in Maskell, 60.15 Henry Ragas, Interrogatory Transcript, 8, October 2, 1917, Hart et al. v. Graham; 8, Dominic ‘Nick’ LaRocca Col-lec on, (New Orleans: Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University), as quoted in Maskell, 61.16 “Nobody Wrote Those Livery Stable Blues: At Least, So Says Man Who Combats the Jazz Kid’s Claim to Musical Fame,” Chicago Daily News, October 12, 1917, 3, quoted in Maskell, 31. 17 Ray Lopez, as told to Dick Holbrook, “Mr. Jazz Himself,” Storyville 64 (April-May 1976): 139.18 Edwin B. Edwards, Interrogatory Transcript, 6, October 2, 1917, Hart et al. v. Graham (N. D. Ill. 1917), Case File E913; U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, as quoted in Maskell, 71-72.19 The highest note can be excluded from this analysis as this note is doubled in two of the lower voices.20 This is transposed from B-fl at for ease of comparison. Sigmund Spaeth, Barber Shop Ballads: A Book of Close Harmony (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1925), 30.21 Jeff Diggers, “Zu Johnsons Bach: A Forgo en Literary Piece by Frederick Delius,” Delius Society Journal 126 (1999): 26.22 Sco Joplin, Treemonisha (New York: Sco Joplin, 1911). Treemonisha may contain other autobiographical refer-ences. The “Preface” states: “’The opera begins in September, 1884. Treemonisha being eighteen years old, now starts upon her career as a teacher and leader.’ Thus, the ac on of the opera is set only a few months a er Julius Weiss le Texarkana, September, 1884, a date so signifi cant to Joplin that he specifi ed exactly in his Preface, is very possibly the month and year when he himself departed Texarkana, to ‘start upon his career as a teacher and leader’” (Theodore Albrecht, “Julius Weiss: Sco Joplin’s First Piano Teacher,” College Music Symposium, vol. 19, no. 2 [Fall, 1979]: 104-5).23 American Musician and Art Journal, 1907, quoted in Rick Benjamin, liner notes to Paragon Rag me Orchestra and Singers, Treemonisha, New World Records CD 80720-2, 20.24 While occasionally a chord on the fl a ed sixth can be found in the European cannon as the “German Sixth,” it is not usually found as a dominant chord with the fl a ed seventh.25 The “Livery Stable Blues,” by Lopez and Nunez, was printed in two versions: an instrumental version and one with lyrics that were not on the original recording.

24 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

26 The 1913 reprint of W. C. Handy’s “The Memphis Blues” was “founded on W. C. Handy’s World Wide ‘’Blue’ Note Melody.” (New York City: Joe Morris Music Co., 1913) copyright Theron C. Benne . 27 “Court Findings” Hart et al. v. Graham, 2, Dominic ‘Nick’ LaRocca Collec on (New Orleans: Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University), as quoted in Maskell, 14.28 LaRocca interviewed by Allen, June 9, 1959.29 Ibid.30 Dominic James “Nick” LaRocca interviewed by William R. Hogan and D. Clive Hardy, October 26, 1959 (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).31 LaRocca interviewed by Allen, May 21, 1958.32 Ibid. 33 David Sager, sleeve notes to King Oliver, Off the Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings, Archeophone Records, 2006, 16. 34 Ibid., 17.35 Lynn Abbo , “’Play That Barber Shop Chord’: A Case for the African-American Origin of Barbershop Harmony,” American Music, vol. 10, no. 3 (1992); Lynn Abbo and Doug Seroff , Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 357-360; Vic Hobson, “Planta on Song: Delius, Barbershop, and the Blues,” American Music, vol. 31, no. 3 (2013).36 Frédéric Döhl, “From Harmonic Style to Genre: The Early History (1890s-1940s) of the Uniquely American Musi-cal Term Barbershop,” American Music, vol. 32, no. 2 (2014): 155. 37 Ibid., 133.38 Carl Engel, “Jazz: A Musical Discussion,” Atlan c Monthly, vol. 130, no. 2 (August 1922), reprinted in Karl Koenig, Jazz in Print (1859-1929): An Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz History (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2002), 200. 39 Edmund Wise, born in 1888 and a friend of Buddy Bolden, told Fred Ramsey in a 1954 interview, “You see, in them days, there used to be quartets and all like that, you know. Well just like all them fellows would be singing, ‘cause he had Cornish was playin’ the trambone [sic] with him, he could sing, well they’d be singing around them bar rooms, well just this was what they was singin’. … Mumford ‘n them, well just what they was singing, Buddy Bolden going to play it. … Well if they’d sing it right, well, he’d learn how to play it right … See, that’s the parts he played it right” (Edmund Wise interviewed by Fred Ramsey, 1954, quoted in Hobson, Crea ng Jazz Counterpoint, 58).

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 25

Centenary Lessons: Exploring the Roots of Jazz and the Music of the Original Dixieland “Jass” Band

By Colin Hancock and Hannah Krall

Introduc on

February 26, 2017, marked the 100th anniversary of what is widely accepted as the fi rst jazz recording. The Victor record by the Original Dixieland “Jass” Band, which consisted of the following members: Larry Shields on clarinet, Nick LaRocca on cornet, Eddie Edwards on trombone, Henry Ragas on piano, and Tony Sbarbaro on a trap set, yielded two tles, “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One-Step.” These records would give most of the world its fi rst taste of jazz, changing popular music forever through its introduc on of new sounds and ideas.1 Although the ODJB did not create this music, they were one of the fi rst to preserve its sounds. This record helped set into mo on the events that led to the explosion of the Jazz Age and the many jazz genres that resulted. Today, 100 years later, we live in a musically diff erent world. The way we access music, the way we listen to it, the quality of it, its stylis c elements, context, and many other factors all contrast greatly with the way it was presented back in 1917. The Original Cornell Syncopators was founded in the spring of 2016 at Cornell University in order to delve into the rich varie es of styles within jazz’s earliest forms by studying its performance prac ce and its historical and musical signifi cance. Corne st Colin Hancock

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, 1917, le to right: Tony Sbarbaro, Eddie Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Larry Shields, Henry Ragas (courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).

26 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

started the group with the aid of Paul Merrill, the Gussman Director of Jazz Educa on at Cornell, and Joe Salzano, a veteran Upstate New York reedman and Cornell associate. The fi rst project: acknowledge the centennial of the fi rst jazz record via a study and performance of the 1917 recordings of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.

The Musicians and Their Roles

Cornell has a thriving and diverse community of jazz musicians, so there was li le issue in selec ng the members of the band based on prior musical knowledge and skills. Clarine st/saxophonist Hannah Krall from Pennsylvania is a Musicology major and a member of the Cornell Jazz Combos, Early Music Lab, and Wind Ensemble. Trombonist Rishi Verma, an Ithaca na ve, studies Engineering when he is not playing in the Cornell Big Bands, Pep Band, or Marching Band. Amit Mizrahi of Detroit is a Computer Science major who started as mostly a classical piano player. Drummer Noah Li, of Scarsdale, New York, is an Informa on Science major, who had experience with punk rock drumming and auxiliary percussion playing in wind ensemble. Colin Hancock of Buda, Texas, is an Urban and Regional Studies Major and a member of the Cornell Big Bands. He took the cornet (and occasional banjo and soprano saxophone) chair as well as the main leadership of the Original Cornell Syncopators.

The fi rst challenge the musicians faced, with the excep on of Hancock, was to become familiar with early jazz in its various styles. To begin, the group got together in the spring of 2016, a full year before the centennial concert, and began to listen. First, we made a comprehensive analysis of the variety in the recorded repertoire of the Original Dixieland “Jass” Band, ranging from their fi rst records

The Original Cornell Syncopators. Standing, le to right: Colin Hancock, cornet; Hannah Krall, clarinet; Amit Mizrahi, piano. Seated, le to right: Rishni Verma, trombone; Noah Li, drums.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 27

to their English releases, to their OKeh Records from the 1920s, and lastly to their 1930s electrical recordings. At fi rst, it was hard for many of the members to listen to the recordings, due not only to the sonic limita ons of the acous c recording process, but also the lack of historical context to explain why the music had such an impact. To combat these issues, two measures were taken. First, we listened to recordings that preceded the 1917 ODJB sessions, ranging from early syncopated performances like the 1897 gem “I Thought I Was a Winner - Or I Don’t Know, You Ain’t So Warm, ” wri en by Bert Williams and performed by the Columbia Orchestra, to the 1916 recording of “Down Home Rag” by Wilbur Sweatman.2 The band also listened to records made by people like John Philip Sousa, Enrico Caruso, and the Edison Symphony Orchestra to help gain an understanding of the overall direc on the music was headed as well as what the ODJB themselves might have heard. 3 Slightly less diffi cult was consul ng some early fi lmography of or related to the band. One li le-known fact about the ODJB is that they may have been the fi rst jazz group to have been fi lmed, as they are allegedly seen performing at Reisenweber’s in the 1917 fi lm “The Good For Nothing” starring Carlyle Blackwell, though the Syncopators could not locate this clip.45 A silent Pathe fi lm of the group in 1921 tled “Music Hath Charms” shows the group performing in front of animals at the Bronx Zoo. Next,

footage of the Original Indiana Five from a 1929 Vitaphone short with sound was consulted; it includes a performance of the ODJB’s own “Clarinet Marmalade.” From 1937, a “March of the Times” newsreel features the fi rst sound footage of the ODJB, including a recrea on of the famous “Livery Stable Blues” session and a s rring performance of “Tiger Rag.” A clip from the 1950s television show “I’ve Got a Secret” features interviews with Sbarbaro and J. Russell Robinson (Ragas’s replacement), as well as a performance with Anthony Paren and Phil Napoleon replacing Shields and LaRocca respec vely. A 1961 performance of “Dixieland One-Step” on the television special “Chicago and All That Jazz” features some great drumming in the style of Sbarbaro by Cliff Leeman. Other performances were consulted, and a complete list is at the end of this ar cle. Next, the band examined the wri en literature about the ODJB, which includes transcribed interviews with Tony Sbarbaro and Nick LaRocca, along with other resources from the Hogan Jazz Archive virtual library. As spring rolled into summer, the band got to work on choosing the repertoire; it was decided that the en rety of the 1917 recordings made by the band would be perfect because they truly show us what the band sounded like in its earliest forms, which gives us the earliest glimpses of jazz in its infancy. In the fall of 2016 the band began to rehearse, and a new set of challenges was faced; namely, how to perform the pieces in such a way that we would not be just reading transcrip ons, or as we called them, “Dixie Book” charts. While reading transcrip ons is a vital step in understanding the music and thought processes of early jazz musicians, it lacks the necessary element of personal connec on to the music. Mundanely reading transcrip ons can sound robo c, or even dead, to a listener who expects the spontaneity and excitement of early jazz. Because the “Dixie Book” charts have a structure similar to “Real Book” charts, many jazz musicians will read them as such, with lots of musicians reading the “head,” causing a lack of understanding of the importance of improvisa onal ensemble playing. In the case of Dixieland charts, the “head” is the melody most commonly played by the corne st. Because the addi on of the clarinet and trombone melody is vital to the crea on of polyphony, performances that solely use such charts are inaccurate. This is a key factor of the ODJB’s sound as well as many other genres, but certainly not all, of Early Jazz. To combat these issues, Hancock began to create something the band began to coin as “roadmap charts” - which highlighted important sec ons of the tunes like the “Dixie Books,” while using the basic arrangements of the recordings. They were by no means exact transcrip ons, but rather le room for the musicians to do their own work of understanding what was aurally missing from the records and to incorporate their own crea ve ideas and expressions while s ll remaining true to the style of the ODJB.

28 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

An integral part of the sound of the ODJB, one which in many ways defi nes their records, is the presence of Tony Sbarbaro’s full drum kit. Not only was it risky for recording engineers at the me to record drums in their en rety due to the tendency to cause issues with the wax master and recording apparatus, but they also tended to get lost in the acous cal sound “mess;” only recently, with the help of modern equipment, have audio technicians been able to bring more clarity to Sbarbaro’s kit, allowing it to shine through the old discs. Any director’s fi rst thought would be to pick a jazz drummer for this group, yet Noah Li’s diverse experience with percussion was far be er suited. His ear for auxiliary percussion sounds allowed him to be more open and crea ve with the diff erent mbres and rhythms of the more unfamiliar trap drum set that Tony Sbarbaro and other preceding as well as subsequent early jazz drummers used. More interes ngly, it could have been easy for a learned jazz drummer to revert to the more swinging style from twenty-some years in the future. While the music of the ODJB does not use “swung” eighth notes, its groove “swings.” Noah, on the other hand, was able to start fresh. Sbarbaro’s playing, like Li’s, was that of a combina on of various backgrounds. In The Story of The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, H. O. Brunn goes in depth, describing Sbarbaro’s trap kit, called such because of the set of “contrap ons” that round out the kit.6 On the snare, Sbarbaro played with what Brunn describes as “a gallopin’ style” that featured “a three-stroke ‘ruff ’ with an accented press roll” on the snare, infl uenced by “New Orleans parade Bands.” Early recordings of the snare are not easy to fi nd, especially played as syncopated as Sbarbaro, though records by Europe’s Society Orchestra, the Versa le Four, and the Eubie Blake Trio were helpful. The hardest challenge was playing the “three-stroke ruff ” described by Brunn rather than playing a simple march-like roll. An excellent example of this “ruff ” can be heard on the ODJB’s 1917 recording of “Indiana.” During the verse, Sbarbaro’s playing cuts through the ensemble well enough to hear the dis nc ve phrasing of his beats on the drum and the “ruff ”. Sbarbaro’s kit also consisted of one to two cowbells and a “large-sized woodblock for con nuous use during the choruses, when it replaced the snare drum.” Brunn then explains how Sbarbaro would use the snare on verses, and “minstrel style” woodblock on choruses, returning again to the snare drum on the last half of the last chorus: “The ‘minstrel’ woodblock reveals the infl uence of the minstrel shows, so common in New Orleans at that me.”7 That the use of woodblocks may have stemmed from minstrelsy was much easier to understand a er listening to a few recordings of minstrel type performances. The best example can be found in the 1895 and 1897 recordings of “Kentucky Jubilee Singers” by Issler’s Orchestra and the Columbia Orchestra, respec vely. 8 On both recordings, there are examples of the blocks used as a syncopated rhythmic driver as well as a novelty embellishment to mimic the sounds of dancing feet or the “bones,” an instrument with its roots in the music of Western Africa. We then compared this to some later block rhythms used on records like “Smiler Rag” by the Zonophone Concert Band and “Down in Louisiana” by the Edison Concert Band. 9 Given this context, it became easy to see where Sbarbaro got at least a por on of his infl uences on the blocks. A twenty-eight-inch street drum was also used to keep the beat either on 2/4 or 4/4, depending on what customers wanted. Santo Pecora describes this mentality quite well: “We used to play two-beat but had to switch to four to keep the customers from walking out. It’s the four-beat that gets ‘em.”10 A China cymbal, suspended, also existed on the top deck of the trap kit, as well as a Chinese tom-tom, harkening to the infl uences from the East through the recent wave of Chinese immigrants to the Western part of the country, as well as the then popular no ons of Orientalism. The ODJB was not unfamiliar with Orientalism, as shown by their 1917 and 1920 recordings of Gabriel Sebek’s “In the Soudan” (recorded as “Oriental Jazz” in 1917 and “Soudan” in 1920). Because of this drumming style’s complexity, it is easy to see how Noah may have been a li le confused and even in midated at fi rst. “It was at fi rst very uncomfortable being forced to switch from pure performer to performer-creator in instances where the recordings either had no drums, or it was

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 29

diffi cult to hear what the drummer was doing,” he says. “Playing this style not only gives me a chance to take a more ac ve role in choosing what I play and how I play it, but also demonstrate a level of musical research about a genre that is not necessarily “popular,” but historically important and fun.”11 Noah also consulted the incredible drummer Hal Smith, one of the few jazz drummers with serious knowhow of early trap drumming styles and expecta ons. Through correspondence, coaching, and above all prac ce and pa ence, Noah was able to form a powerful sound on the drums and use his ear in the same way Sbarbaro may have done, by learning as much about performance prac ce and equipment as he did about techniques and style. Ini ally star ng on a contemporary kit ou i ed with a china cymbal, bell and blocks, the switch was made to a period style kit, complete with a 26-inch bass drum rescued from an Ithaca dumpster by Paul Merrill; a Chinese tom-tom purchased from China by Colin Hancock, and other necessary addi ons. Amit Mizrahi also faced a serious challenge in regards to piano playing in the style of the elusive Henry Walter Ragas. If it was not enough of an issue that Ragas passed away in 1919 as a result of the Spanish Flu epidemic, the fact that almost all of the sides he recorded with the ODJB have li le to no presence of piano pushes the diffi culty of adop ng his style to a diff erent level. Brunn describes that Ragas played with a “heavy le hand [that] provided a strong chord founda on for the structure of the music, while his right added another melodic voice to the band. Unlike most jazz pianists today, Ragas did not just play rhythm alone with an occasional embellishment. [He] was a ‘Ten-Fingered’ pianist whose style contributed body and background strength to the ensemble.”12 The best recordings of Ragas are undoubtedly “Dixie Jass Band One-Step” when Sbarbaro switches to blocks in the C-Strain; “Bluin’ The Blues,” which was in some ways a feature for the young pianist; and “Indiana” on Columbia. On each of these recordings, one must fi rst listen to Sbarbaro and then listen inside the drums to hear the piano. This kind of close listening reveals a strong sense of ming and rhythmic intensity, especially in the le hand where his audible embellishments are most o en heard. However, we knew it was going to be hard for Mizrahi to do this, even from just an aurally challenging standpoint. In the words of Jazz drummer and historian Hal Smith, “The pianist has a diffi cult job. Who can really HEAR what Henry Ragas sounded like?!?13” Mizrahi took the few known aspects of Ragas’s playing into his own piano playing, which stemmed from not just jazz but also his strong classical background. In fact, it was not uncommon to fi nd him ripping bits and pieces of Chopin and Beethoven in the midst of quiet moments during rehearsals. His classical technique was a reason why he picked up the style so quickly. For instance, his experience of playing lots of Chopin is a large part of his success. Chopin’s music, at mes, features disjointed le hand fi gures where a bass note is hit at the beginning of the measure and is accompanied by a repeated chord around middle C. This bass confi gura on is similar to the style of Ragas, although it is played much slower and more rubato. Slowly but surely, Amit was able to pull much from what li le he could hear Ragas do and play: “It was a rare chance to directly interact with history instead of passively learning about it,” he said. “I enjoyed the challenge of dissec ng a recording, analyzing its parts and interpre ng it in new and original ways.14” The horns had a much easier task, due par ally to the sheer presence of LaRocca, Edwards, and Shields on the original recordings. For be er understanding of Nick LaRocca’s playing, Hancock fi rst examined the Aeolian-Vocalion and Columbia recordings of the band from 1917. Unlike the Victor records, which stress the clarinet and trombone countermelodies, the Vocalion sides placed LaRocca at a distance where his full, driving, and, above all, syncopated style could be heard. His fi gures on records like “Ostrich Walk” and “Look At ‘Em Doin’ It” show a beau ful, well rounded tone, clearly infl uenced by Herbert L. Clarke of Sousa’s Band. LaRocca also had a knack for hi ng the beat just on its earlier side without necessarily rushing, crea ng an exci ng and rhythmically interes ng eff ect similar to what has been called “ragging.” This is very present in the ODJB’s Vocalion recording of “Tiger Rag,” especially

30 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

during the C sec on, where he throws in triplets as well as syncopated or ragged lines that don’t stray too far from the melody, but do so enough to keep the listener interested and maintain a certain level of spontaneity. Also mixed in his melodies are the occasional growls, blue notes, and bell tone-like calls; these may harken back to the me when parade days and vaudeville were in their prime. Also important in understanding LaRocca’s sound is a knowledge of other white corne sts from the same or similar lineage. For starters, Frank Chris an, brother of later ODJB member Emile Chris an, made several records in the late 1910s with a group led by pianist and future vaudeville star Jimmy Durante, billing themselves the “Original New Orleans Jazz Band.” In their 1918 and 1919 recordings of “Ja-Da,” Chris an plays before-the-beat syncopa ons similar to LaRocca, and he stays in the middle range of his instrument, although his interval jumps are a li le more adventurous.15 He stays close to the melody, aside from a few blue tones played in the beginning of the last eight bars of the “You’ll Find Old Dixieland in France” introduc on. Finally, the 1919 recording of “Slow and Easy” by the Louisiana Five features an unknown corne st who plays with convic on and confi dence, similar to the sound of LaRocca and Chris an, right down to the before-the-beat syncopa on during the sec on that is reminiscent of “Ostrich Walk.” 16 Chris an, LaRocca, and, presumably Alfred Laine, were all alumni of Papa Jack Laine’s Reliance Band, a band in which many early white New Orleans jazzmen got their chops and fi rst steady professional work. Looking down the road, Paul Mares of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Abbie Brunies of the Halfway House Orchestra, who also had similar approaches to their cornet playing, also got their start with Jack Laine. Thus, a well-rounded idea of LaRocca’s playing, as well as his context, could be determined. Hancock previously studied the music of Buddy Bolden and other associated corne sts and musicians.17 This made it a li le easier to grasp LaRocca’s style, although LaRocca probably played more cleanly than Bolden. The greatest challenge Hancock faced was limi ng the amount of embellishments one can add to a melody. A er having heard the ODJB songbook played by so many ar sts for so long, it was diffi cult to block other infl uences. Again, many aspects of what we call jazz today were either in their infancy or would not occur un l later, so Hancock thought the inspira on had to come from LaRocca and musicians who played before LaRocca. Hannah Krall had an interes ng job taking on the sound of Larry Shields. It is no secret that Shields’s clarinet playing is the most present on almost all of the ODJB’s recordings due to the nature of the sonic range of the instrument being perfectly suited for the acous c process of making records. However, it would be remiss to say this meant she had the easiest job. Shields played with an incredibly broad and smooth tone, rarely with any moments of strong or sharp ar cula on. His ming is loose in ensemble passages, where he would, in Krall’s words, “fl oat on top of everyone else.” On the other hand, Shields’s breaks were virtually always in me - never swung - which was unusual, considering the looseness of his ensemble fi gures. This “switching” can be heard to great advantage in the original, 1917 Aeolian-Vocalion recordings of “Tiger Rag” and “Ostrich Walk,” on which Shields’s breaks are crisp and clear, while his ensemble playing is more laid back and smooth. It can be insinuated that Shields was improvising these strains and their rhythms, although he certainly had a set list of safe “notes” to choose from, as shown by closer examina on of the later versions of both tunes, recorded for Victor in 1918 and Columbia in 1920. As me progressed, Krall also spent less me working from wri en parts and more me trying to absorb Shields’s sound and approach. Even though it was necessary to understand Shields’ melodic contribu ons to the ensemble, Krall found that once she learned to imitate his tone, it unlocked many other aspects of his playing. For instance, it became quite apparent that, unlike Krall, Larry Shields was certainly not classically trained and could not read music. She notes that there were many moments in a prac ce room where she would be prac cing one of his lines, only to fi nd it nearly impossible. Slowly, she learned to experiment with unconven onal fi ngerings in order to produce the pitch she wanted,

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 31

while making the melodic line more technically feasible. Lastly, Rishi Verma played the role of trombonist Eddie Edwards, the only member of the band who was a true “reader.” Edwards’s trombone is well recorded on every ODJB tle. It is characterized by a powerful, room-fi lling tone with crisp a ack and execu on. Edwards, like LaRocca, Shields, and Sbarbaro, got his chops playing with Papa Jack Laine. He also probably heard the work of Arthur Pryor, John Philip Sousa’s principal trombonist for many years. Pryor’s records, recorded by Victor during the fi rst decade of the 1900s, as well as Sousa’s, would have been sold across the country, including in New Orleans. It is easy to imagine the young Edwards enjoying early band rag me recordings like George Botsford’s “Grizzly Bear” or Pryor’s own “Razzazza Mazzazza” (later reworked into “Lassus Trombone,” and eventually “Ory’s Creole Trombone”), then taking a crack at them himself in one of Laine’s bands.18

While Edwards fi lled his playing with smears, glissandi, and rhythmic fi gures that we associate with later “Dixieland” tailgate trombone, he played a more crucial role as a bass or baritone voice counterpart to Ragas’s le hand. Although it would be easy to say that this kind of trombone player essen ally played the same part as the modern-day bass player, we found it to be a li le more complex. As Verma discovered, “I play as part of the rhythm sec on, giving bass notes and keeping me. The 1917 Aeolian-Vocalion recording of ‘Oriental Jazz’ for example has a unique driving beat coming from the tom and trombone that creates the backbone of the piece.”19 Another example from the same session is “Look At Em’ Doin It.”20 Edwards forms a hybrid between the bass and the third melodic voice. He is not restricted to only playing the root of the chord and can play other chord tones in order to become a part of the melodic trio. He also varies the rhythm between long bass tones with falls and runs that are diffi cult, yet exci ng to hear. They add to the sound, especially due to the diff erences in mbre between the three melodic instruments.

The Coaches

Slowly, the band members began to develop an ear for the recordings. Gaining an understanding of the tonality and characteris c sonority of the acous c process allowed them to listen past the record to the performance. The band got some important coaching along the way. Joe Salzano and Paul Merrill, valued members of both the Cornell jazz program and the greater Upstate New York jazz community, were crucial in helping the band get started. Paul Merrill is a fantas c trumpet player. He and Hancock met to discuss the Syncopators on a snowy Sunday a ernoon in February 2016. As they listened to a few of Hancock’s 78 rpm records, including a copy of “Livery Stable Blues,” Hancock broached the possibility of providing students with the necessary support and space to take on projects that would highlight jazz’s earliest forms, kicking things off with a project celebra ng the centennial anniversary of the fi rst jazz recording. Merrill was intrigued by the idea, and the two got to work recrui ng musicians.The perfect coach for the group turned out to be local Ithaca reedman and Cornell affi liate Joe Salzano. Salzano’s infl uence cannot be overstated. He helped each member of the band assume the role of his or her counterpart in the ODJB. He got Hancock to play with more clarity and syncopa on; Krall to develop more a ack and power; Verma to play with more slide and less “blat;” and the rhythm sec on to work as a team. Help also came from veteran players and jazz experts Dan Levinson, David Sager, and Hal Smith. Dan Levinson has worked with a plethora of famous ar sts including Wynton Marsalis, Mel Torme, and Vince Giordano. He is one of the foremost authori es on early jazz and rag me performance. His Roof Garden Jass Band was one of the fi rst to recreate the style of the ODJB and other less well remembered groups like Johnny Dunn’s Jazz Hounds, the Frisco Jass Band, and Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band. Hancock met Levinson in Los Angeles in 2015, and a friendship was formed between the two. For this project, Levinson provided some useful pieces of advice on how to play more as a unit in the manner of the

32 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

ODJB. For instance, Levinson spoke on the challenges today’s music students face when trying to adopt a style from a century ago: “If you’re going to give musicians the freedom to improvise their own parts, the ideas need to be in the style of the original players and the music. It’s very hard to force oneself to disregard a century of evolu on, once those post-ODJB sounds are in your ears. You have to completely immerse yourself in the music, to the exclusion of all else - and no modern-day jazz student is in a posi on to do that!”21

David Sager, who has served as a mentor to Hancock since the inaugura on of the Buddy Bolden Cylinder Project in 2014, is a respected jazz historian, reference assistant in the Library of Congress’ Recorded Sound Research Center and curator of the Library’s Na onal Jukebox, not to men on a mean Rag-a-Jazz trombonist (he was, a er all, an original member of Dan Levinson’s Roof Garden band). He began helping the Cornell Syncopators in the spring of 2016, giving some great advice on how to round out their sound. For example, when the group sent him a recording of an early a empt at “Livery Stable Blues,” in which the polyphony of the horns was quite lacking in balance and Li’s bass drum was a tad overpowering, Sager responded, “I would recommend a smoother and less bombas c style. Compare the ODJB with one of the Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band recordings and you’ll see what I mean.”22 With this easy-to-follow instruc on, the band listened to “Jazz De Luxe” and “Slippery Hank” by Fuller’s band, followed by “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie ‘Jass’ Band One-Step” by the ODJB.23 We immediately heard the diff erences in sound that otherwise would not have been nearly as apparent. Not only was this a great way to be er understand the ODJB, but it also helped ignite that process of thinking of Early Jazz as a whole, which helped us mature as Early Jazz musicians. Hal Smith, in addi on to being an incredible Hot Jazz drummer with an incredible resume is an invaluable resource because he actually got to see several players from the same genera on as the ODJB, including Kid Ory, Johnny St. Cyr, and Chink Mar n. Smith was instrumental in convincing Hancock to go to the Jazz Department at Cornell with the idea of founding the group in the fi rst place. In terms of tackling the ODJB sound, he was especially helpful to Li, recommending audio and fi lm clips and sharing his knowledge of early jazz drumming techniques and equipment preferences. At the end of 2016, Hal described Li’s improvements as, “really understanding the style perfectly AND [keeping] the momentum going, even when playing that “toddling” rhythm on the block and bell. I admire!”24 In addi on to aiding the group’s understanding of the ODJB’s sound, these profi cient and established jazz veterans were also crucial in teaching the Syncopators about Early Jazz. Aspiring jazz musicians tend to learn through the assistance of older players. Key examples include Louis Armstrong with King Oliver and, of course, LaRocca, Shields, Edwards, and Sbarbaro with Papa Jack Laine. This kind of on-the-job mentorship con nues in modern jazz history. From the stories told by Salzano during rehearsal to the enthusiasm that Smith shared via email, the band learned through the interac on and guidance of other musicians. It is one thing to take lessons, but to have informa on passed down from one genera on of jazz musicians to the next was an experience the band could not get in a classroom. Branching out by playing in public and not in the confi nes of the “Ivory Tower” provided the band with many mentors, who could not have helped without the Syncopators’ determina on to be more involved within the Early Jazz scene.

The Performance

Months of prepara on, rehearsing, and gigging around Ithaca fi nally culminated on February 26, 2017, when, on the 100th Anniversary of the waxing of the fi rst jazz record, the Syncopators held a performance in the historic 1888 Barnes Hall on Cornell’s campus, celebra ng the music of the ODJB in the form of a historical drama za on. Hancock put adver sing posters up all around Ithaca. A wonderful program was prepared by Loralyn Light. Jazz fans came from as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey,

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 33

including Syncopated Times writers Andy Senior and Bill Hoff man, who wrote a concert review in their April edi on. The show began with a brief narra ve of the band read by Joe Salzano, followed by the fi rst act of the show, “A Night at Reisenweber’s.” Reisenweber’s Cafe was run by John Reisenweber on 58th Street and 8th Avenue. Originally a Tavern, a er inheri ng it from his family, he tore the preexis ng structure down and replaced it with a ballroom and the twelve dining rooms. It hosted the ODJB’s fi rst engagement in New York.25 In “A Night at Reisenweber’s,” the Syncopators, along with the Crazeology Dance Troupe led by Anneke Van Renesse, played fi ve of the numbers that the band recorded in 1917, opening with “Tiger Rag,” followed by “Ostrich Walk,” “Look At Em’ Doin’ It,” “Oriental Jazz,” and “At The Jass Band Ball.” The audience was par cularly drawn to the faster one-step tempo numbers, although they proved to be a challenge for the dancers. The act ended with Merrill imita ng Charles Sooy of

Columbia Records, who approached the band at Reisenweber’s and invited them to make a test record. A er an intermission, the second act began with the band at the Columbia Studios in the Woolworth Building in Manha an. Merrill counted down from a faux recording studio booth (complete with recording horn). The band opened with “Darktown Stru ers’ Ball,” followed by a steaming hot version of “Indiana.”26 However, as the story goes, the band was rejected by Columbia - a sad moment in music history, made slightly more lighthearted in this performance. All was not lost however; the band was approached by Victor (future Syncopator sax man Troy Anderson delivered the ‘telegraph’); they went to the Victor Studio, which ironically was dis nguished by a sign being fl ipped on the booth along with Merrill spor ng a fake moustache (in keeping with the ODJB’s vaudevillian heritage). The “recording” of “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One-Step” commenced with cheers from the audience a er each number. An encore was requested at the end, much to the dismay of the horn players’ chops.27 Many professors asked the band about the overall format of the concert. The fi rst and

February 26, 2017: The Original Cornell Syncopators, live at Barnes Hall, Cornell University, on the 100th anniversary of the waxing of the fi rst jazz record.

34 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

second act equaled about 20 minutes apiece; some felt an intermission was not needed. Because of the fast tempos and high energy moments, this music requires a great deal of energy and stamina, and credit is certainly due to the ODJB for their ability to play this repertoire night a er night. By the end of the show, the Syncopators were overall pleased by the concert’s turnout and the audience’s enthusiasm. It is wonderful that even a er 100 years this music remains fresh to both new and veteran listeners.

Looking Ahead

The Syncopators learned that the aspect of Early Jazz that is most appealing is also the one that is modernly absent from its adver sement: its energy. As the band became more and more familiar with the charts, the music of the ODJB began to take on so much more meaning than what was on the old records. Indeed, the music went from imita on to real, living art. Performances were no longer mimicking the original, but rather a performance with their own ideas and imperfec ons implemented as such. The moment when this truly came to life occurred when the band recorded onto wax cylinders a few weeks before their February show. While the band listened to themselves come out of the scratchy grooves, they realized exactly how much of their sound was lost due to the sonic limita ons of the acous c recordings. As a result, the band learned the extent to which early jazz records are not clear representa ons of performance. This understanding provided them with a deeper connec on to the

The Original Cornell Syncopators: augmented and looking ahead

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 35

ODJB: a humbling moment full of empathy.28

The Original Cornell Syncopators are currently exploring Early Jazz chronologically. This past spring, the personnel was augmented by reed player Troy Anderson of Rochester, tuba player Sarah Cohn-Manik of Ithaca, banjo player Robert Van Renesse of Ithaca, and trumpet player/violinist Niki Love of Sea le. The new members carry the same amount of diversity in backgrounds, enthusiasm, and passion for the music, and similar sen ments about the challenges of the style, as the original members. Regarding early jazz violin styles, Love stated, “I come from a completely diff erent musical culture on the fi ddle and so it’s been a learning experience trying to fi nd the right vernacular in ornamenta on and style. Coming from a Cel c tradi on makes the syncopatedness and bounciness of early jazz very familiar but it forces me to really defi ne what makes a lick Cel c vs jazzy.” When speaking on making the switch from more contemporary forms of jazz to earlier forms, Troy Anderson said, “While it has been challenging to adjust to a style of jazz that I had previously been given li le opportunity to play, this group has made extraordinary strides in recent months and I am excited to see the direc on they take in the future.” Cohn-Manick, a veteran of the Cornell Big Red Band, spoke on her switch to Jazz Tuba, stated, “I’ve go en a lot more comfortable with jazz and the tuba as part of the rhythm sec on.” Professor Van Renesse spoke directly to the group’s mission when he said, “As a jazz banjoist, I’m a huge fan of old jazz recordings, but it’s rare to fi nd people of any age who want to play this exci ng music... while I’m old enough to be their father, they have made me feel very welcome in the group.” The band’s spring repertoire included pieces by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, the Halfway House Orchestra, the Wolverine Orchestra, Charlie Creath, Fats Waller, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. As the band moves into the fall of 2017, the music of Henderson, Ellington, the Missourians, and Charlie Johnson among others is next on the list, as well as an upcoming show at the San Diego Jazz Fes val.

Epilogue

It is no surprise that when even the most learned contemporary jazz musicians and historians give the ODJB an in-depth listen, they experience a mixed bag of reac ons. Do they understand the group’s importance? Absolutely. Do they enjoy listening to the music? It is certainly a possibility. But truly deciphering it proves a challenge, hurdled as much by the era’s poor recording technology and misinformed literature. Addi onally, much of the music by the band that is accessible, especially their sides for Victor, do not give an accurate representa on of how the band actually sounded when playing live for dancers; this sound, which a racted the a en on from the media, got them into the studio in the fi rst place. Though some jazz musicians and listeners alike have dismissive thoughts about early jazz, with its muted records or even some lackluster modern interpreta ons of it, these truly do not serve it jus ce. In exploring jazz before 1940, the members of the Original Cornell Syncopators, many of whom never explored early jazz before, are learning that there is so much more than what is in the grooves of a shellac disc or the faded recollec ons of pioneers. In turn, the band hopes to spread awareness and enthusiasm to the next genera on in a way that upholds the original mo va ons and styles of the ar sts.

Works Cited

All Music. “Henry W. Ragas”. Visited on June 28, 2017. h p://www.allmusic.com/ar st/henry-w-ragas-mn0000675623Brunn, H. O. The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960).

36 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

Burney, Charles, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period. To Which is Prefi xed, A Disserta on on the Music of the Ancients Volume 4. London, 1776-89.Koenig, Karl. Jazz In Print (1856-1929): An Anthology of Selected Early Readings In Jazz History. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2002.

Discography

Arthur Pryor’s Band. “Grizzly Bear.” Victor 9466: B, 1910.Arthur Pryor’s Band. “Razzazza Mazzazza.” Victor 2818: B, 1905. Columbia Orchestra. “I Thought I Was a Winner - Or I Don’t Know You Ain’t So Warm.” Columbia, 1897. Columbia Orchestra. “Kentucky Jubilee Singers.” Columbia, 1897.Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band. “Jazz de Luxe.” Emerson 952, 1918.Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band. “Slippery Hank.” Victor 18321: A, 1917. Issler’s Orchestra. “Kentucky Jubilee Singers.” North American Phonograph Company, 1895.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “At the Jazz Band Ball.” Aeolian Vocalion 1205, 1917.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “Darktown Stru ers’ Ball”/”(Back Home Again in) Indiana.” Columbia 2297, 1917.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “Dixie Jass Band One Step”/”Livery Stable Blues.” Victor 18255: A-B, 1917.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “Look at Em’ Doin’ It Now.” Aeolian Vocalion 1242, 1917.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “Oriental Jazz.” Aeolian Vocalion 12097, 1917.Original Dixieland “Jass” Band. “Ostrich Walk”/”Tiger Rag.” Aeolian Vocalion 1206, 1917.Peerless Orchestra. “Down in Louisiana.” Edison 8067, 1904. Wilbur Sweatman. “Down Home Rag.” Emerson 7161, 1916.Zonophone Concert Band. “Smiler Rag.” Zonophone, 1906.

Filmography

Music Hath Charms. Bri sh Pathe, 1921. Newsreel.Grace Johnston and the Indiana Five. Murray Roth. Vitaphone (Warner Bros. Produc on), 1929. Film.March of the Time. Time Inc, 1937, Newsreel.I’ve Got a Secret. Franklin Hellper. CBS, 1955, Television.America’s Music - Chicago and All That Jazz. NBC, 1961, Television.Original Downtown Syncopators. Bri sh Pathe, 1962. Newsreel.Billy Jones and Original Downtown Syncopators - Pioneers of Jazz. Bri sh Pathe, 1963. Newsreel.Tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band - “The Zoo Experiment”. Netherlands Television, 1992. News.Dan Levinson’s Roof Garden Jass Band: “Ostrich Walk”: Michael Katsobashvili. YouTube, 2017. Performance.

Endnotes

1 Original Dixieland “Jass” Band, “Dixie Jass Band One Step”/”Livery Stable Blues,” Victor 18255, 1917.2 Columbia Orchestra, “I Thought I Was a Winner - Or I Don’t Know You Ain’t So Warm”, Columbia, 1897; Wilbur Sweatman, “Down Home Rag”, Emerson 7161, 1916. This is one of the earliest examples of improvisa onal syncopated clarinet playing.3 Nick LaRocca was a huge fan of Sousa’s music.4 http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.5745/default.html5 https://books.google.com/books?id=8FwyY-6IveQC&pg=PA1&dq=good+for+nothing+original+dixiel

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 37

and+jass+band&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL44OtuOzVAhVnzIMKHR9CC54Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=good%20for%20nothing%20original%20dixieland%20jass%20band&f=false6 O. H. Brunn, They Story of the Original “Dixieland” Jass Band (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960), 42.7 Ibid.8 Issler’s Orchestra, “Kentucky Jubilee Singers”, North American Phonograph Company, 1895;Columbia Orchestra, “Kentucky Jubilee Singers”, Columbia, 1897.9 Zonophone Concert Band, “Smiler Rag”, Zonophone, 1906; Edison Concert Band, “Down in Louisiana”, Edison 8067, 1904. 10 Brunn, The Story, 32.11 Noah Li, email message to Colin Hancock, June 19, 2017.12 Brunn, The Story, 120-121.13 Hal Smith, email message to Colin Hancock, June 28, 2016.14 Amit Mizrahi, email message to Colin Hancock, June 16, 2017.15 Original New Orleans Jazz Band, “Ja Da,” OKeh 1155, 1918; Genne 4508: 1919. 16 Louisiana Five, “Slow and Easy”, Columbia 2949: A, 1919 (This could be a reworking of the old New Orleans warhorse “Don’t Go’way Nobody”). Brian Rust, Jazz Records lists the corne st as either Doc Behrendson or Alfred Laine. 17 See Colin Hancock, “The Bolden Cylinder Project,” The Jazz Archivist, vol. 28 (2015).18 Arthur Pryor’s Band, “Grizzly Bear”, Victor 9466: B, 1910; Arthur Pryor’s Band, “Razzazza Mazzazza”, Victor 2818: B, 1905.19 Rishi Verma, email message to Colin Hancock, June 20, 2017; Original Dixieland “Jass” Band, “Oriental Jazz”, Aeolian Vocalion 12097, 1917.20 Original Dixieland “Jass” Band, “Look at Em’ Doin’ It Now”, Aeolian Vocalion 1242, 1917.21 Dan Levinson, e-mail message to Colin Hancock, September 15, 2016.22 David Sager, email message to Colin Hancock, September 15, 2016. Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band was a notorious New York “knock-off ” of the ODJB, which Victor has ly recorded in 1917 following the “Livery Stable Blues”/”Dixie Jass Band One-Step” lawsuit and subsequent signing of the ODJB to Vocalion.23 Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band, “Jazz de Luxe”, Emerson 952, 1918; Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band, “Slippery Hank”, Victor 18321: A, 1917. The cuts are similar in tempi, which helped the band learn from them.24 Hal Smith, e-mail message to Colin Hancock, November 18, 2016.25 http://www.brighteningglance.org/reisenwebers-columbus-circle.html26 Video of this performance available on Youtube: h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XxF_sYYORM.27 The Original Memphis Five’s arrangement of “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” was has ly chosen.28 A video on this session and the concert en tled “100 Years of Recorded Jazz” is available on Youtube: h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQmq7W9fabw.

38 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : Lee Caplan and Michael Li from Rutgers University; fi lm makers Henry Griffi n and Cyprienne Oliver from the University of New Orleans; Curator Bruce Boyd Raeburn and Tulane graduate student Jonathon

Rizenor; bassist Jason Weaver; researcher Henry C. Lacey, WWOZ programer Sally Young, and (in the background), Nora Daniels, Denise Frazier, and staff er Alaina Hebert; musician/educator/writer Paul Combs;

biographer Marthell Adams with her new book, Legacy of a Creole Treasure.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 39

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : Becky, Kelby, Tristan, and Crispin Lihme, rela ves of jazz scholar Karl Koenig; writer/researcher Jason Berry; ar st/educator/therapist Kamili Nilata; pianist Elsbeth Smith;

researcher Sherman Houston from Louisiana State University at Shreveport; researcher Amy Nikolai; renaissance man Alphe Williams.

40 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : Tulane Music Department graduate Kyle DeCoste, now at Columbia University; jazz pilgrims Ma hew Berger, Joseph Weiss, and Timothy Mai; musicians Seva Venet and Mitchell Player; WYES’s Peggy Sco

Laborde and the curator; researcher Polly Palfi ; writer/educator Marva Carter from Georgia State University; friend of the Jazz Archive Keli Rylance from Kansas State University.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 41

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : Penazer Evans holding a 1956 Ralston Crawford photograph taken at St. Philip Church of God in Christ, in which he can be seen in the congrega on; the curator with Kathy Martello, who let us have a look at

Nick LaRocca’s fi rst wife’s scrapbook; musician Rashaad Collins; the curator plays “Livery Stable Blues” on the wind-up Victrola for a Girl Scout troupe from Lusher School; Gary Edwards Jr. and Gary Edwards Sr. deliver the Eddie Edwards

Collec on; Brian Piper from the New Orleans Museum of Art; New Orleans researcher Warren Jones.

42 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : interna onal visitors from the New Orleans Ci zen Diplocay Council posing with the curator; Jane Mufamadi from Freedom Park, Pretoria, South Africa; ar st Dave Muller; Capt. Trivius Caldwell, Instructor of

English at the United States Military Academy, West Point (far right), with a class of cadets; family researcher Stella R. Wright; writer/researcher Peter Gerler; drummer Mayumi Shara.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 43

IN THE ARCHIVE

Clockwise from top le : New Orleans historian Judy Geddes; Creole Fiesta Society researchers Linda Bordenave Woods, Russell Vappie, Denise Galbreath Perez, and Jean Benjamin-Vappie; writer/researcher Bob Catalio ; family

researchers Robbie and Charles F. Robinson; designers Thea and Nina Spring; writer/researcher Macon Fry; the Mossman family, Kathy, Brenna, and John, deliver the Bill Mossman Collec on of Recorded Sound.

44 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

“Bessie Smith and Her Band” The March 2, 1927, Session

By Wayne D. Shirley

Editor’s note: This is the third installment of Wayne D. Shirley’s ongoing “Bessie Smith” column. The previous installments can be accessed on our library site.

Early writers on Bessie Smith, ci ng what had been told them in interviews, some mes said that her earthier numbers were forced on her by “her white producers.” Working on her recorded repertory song-by-song, I became convinced that she herself was responsible for choosing most of what she sang; in this column, though, I’d like to look at a session which was fairly clearly designed, at least in its general

repertory, by Bessie’s primary producer Frank Walker.1 The session, which took place in New York City on March 2, 1927, consisted of four popular songs from various eras, ranging from turn-of-the-century to up-to-date. The three older numbers were (and are s ll) well-known, while the newest of them, less than a year old, had already racked up at least nine recordings. None of the songs was a Blues (either blues-by- tle or twelve-bar); all are verse-and-chorus popular songs.2 Here are the four, listed by date of publica on:“A Hot Time in the Old Town” (1896)“Alexander’s Rag me Band” (1911)“A er You’ve Gone” (1918)“Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan)” (1926). The recordings were released as being by “Bessie Smith and Her Band.” “Her Band” – for this session and no other – consisted of Fletcher Henderson, pianist (and doubtless organizer/leader); Joe Smith, cornet; Jimmy Harrison, trombone; Coleman Hawkins and Buster Bailey, clarinets; and Charlie Dixon, banjo. All of these except Jimmy Harrison are names familiar to people who read lists-of-accompanists in discographies; all except Coleman Hawkins and Jimmy Harrison appear frequently on Bessie Smith’s records;3 all but Jimmie Harrison were veterans of

The classic cover for “A er You’ve Gone,” used for both the version with the original 1918 words and the version with the revised lyrics for the end

(courtesy Charles Templeton Sheet Music Collec on, Mississippi State University).

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 45

Bessie Smith’s sessions of May 1925 which produced “Cake-Walking Babies from Home” and “The Yellow Dog Blues.”4 Jimmy Harrison was a regular-though-not-invariable member of the Fletcher Henderson band in 1927-1928. Bailey and the then twenty-two year old Hawkins (his epoch-making recording of “Body and Soul” was made twelve years later) play together only on “Muddy Water.” Otherwise they split assignments, with Bailey on “A er You’ve Gone” and “Hot Time” (as we’ll occasionally abbreviate the longest of our tles) and Hawkins on “Alexander’s Rag me Band.” (Bailey is more comfortable with the Dixielandish instrumental chorus of “Hot Time” than Hawkins is with the instrumental chorus of “Alexander.”) This session produced four of Bessie Smith’s most memorable recordings. Part of this is the result of the repertory just as repertory – hearing what Bessie does with vaudeville numbers like “Hot Time” and “Alexander” suggest what she would have sounded like on the black-vaudeville stage – but all four are par cularly worth repeated listening. I listed the four songs above in the order of their crea on; I’ll consider below the recordings in the order in which they were recorded. “A er You’ve Gone,” words and music by Henry Creamer and Turner Layton,5 was published in 1918. Creamer and Layton were also the authors of “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” and “Dear Old Southland,” the la er a ruthless seculariza on of the melodies of “Deep River” and “Some mes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” Bessie Smith had recorded their “Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time” in 1923; she would record “Sweet Mistreater” and “Lock and Key,” both of them wri en by Creamer and James P. Johnson, a month a er our session. (Creamer and Johnson were also responsible for that standard of standards “If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight.”) “A er You’ve Gone” had been a major hit in 1918-1919, with the 1918 Marion Harris recording being a par cularly strong seller. It was undergoing somewhat of a revival in 1927: both Red Nichols and Evelyn Thompson had recorded it that January, and Ruth E ng recorded it the day before Bessie Smith’s session. (Sophie Tucker would fi nally record this Sophie-Tuckerish song later that year.) Bessie Smith’s session starts out with “Her Band” doing a standard intro: four bars of end-of-tune, then two bars of vamp- ll-ready (the only vamp- ll-ready in

this session) leading into the singer’s

Page 3 (second page of music) for “A er You’ve Gone,” showing the original fi nal two lines (“Oh! Babe...”) of the lyrics (courtesy Charles

Templeton Sheet Music Collec on, Mississippi State University).

46 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

fi rst entry. In intro and vamp the band is fairly raucous, as though this will be a good- mey sendup of an old- me tune; but Bessie Smith pulls them up instantly with the intense, focused tone of her voice. From then on they’re subservient to her singing. Even the brief instrumental windup con nues the serious tone of her performance. “A er You’ve Gone” is a fi rst-person song; the song of a woman talking to the man who has just said he’s leaving her. The verse sets the scene – 6

Now listen, honey, while I say How can you tell me that you’re going away? --And shows her feelings: How can you leave me? Can’t you see my tears?The chorus, introduced (end of verse) by “Now listen while I say,” is her message to her man: …A er you’ve gone, there’s no denying You’ll feel blue, you’ll feel sad; You’ll miss the dearest pal you ever had…It ends with her prophesy: Some day when you grow lonely, Your heart will break like mine and you’ll want me only, A er you’ve gone, a er you’ve gone away. Bessie’s intense tone can, I suppose, be heard as conver ng this song into abstract music, like a great instrumentalist blowing a series of choruses on a standard (I will confess that I hear her “Careless Love Blues” – Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Green, Fletcher Henderson – as such an abstrac on, and enjoy it migh ly as such); but to me it represents rather a passionate delivery of the lyrics of the song, meaning every word. This is true in par cular for the second chorus, where she rides defi ant over the elaborate stop me-based accompaniment of Her Band. That ending prophesy does not, in fact, represent the original end to the song.7 As fi rst published in 1918 the ending went back to the sadness of the verse: Oh! Babe, think what you’re doing[;] You know my love for you will drive me to ruin A er you’ve gone….The early recordings of “A er You’ve Gone,” including the extremely infl uen al 1918 recording by Marion Harris, of course have these words - in all choruses if there is more than one. By 1927 the “Some day…” text has defi nitely taken over as the main ending-text for the song, though some recordings, including those of Ruth E ng and Sophie Tucker, use the “Oh! Babe” text for second chorus. Bessie Smith will have none of the “Oh! Babe” lyrics; they disappear, as far as I’ve been able to fi nd out, a er 1927.8 “A er You’ve Gone” itself remains a standard of standards, beloved of jazz singers and close-harmony groups alike; meless, indestruc ble. For me at least Bessie Smith’s reading of the song is transcendent, the par cular fl ower of the four great recordings which make up her March 2, 1927, session.

“Alexander’s Rag me Band,” words and music by Irving Berlin (with a nod to Stephen Foster just before the fi nal cadence), published in 1911, is the best-known of the four songs which make up the March 2 session. Bessie and Her Band run through verse and three choruses, the second chorus a Dixielandish chorus for Her Band alone. If “A er You’ve Gone” was a song of confronta on, “Alexander’s Rag me Band” invites the listener: Oh ma honey, oh ma honey, You be er hurry and let’s go down there9 Bessie’s tone is s ll intense, but it’s now also relaxed: this is enthusiasm, not confronta on. Carefree and swinging, pronouncing the bandleader’s name “Elexander,” it’s a joy from start to its rather abrupt fi nish: that generous helping of three choruses le no me for an instrumental windup a er the singer’s last notes.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 47

“Her Band,” thanks to Fletcher Henderson, ably seconds Bessie. One of these secondings might seem to be nega ve: there is no representa on of the “bugle call as you’ve never heard before” during her fi rst chorus. This line is a trap for arrangers/performers: it can destroy the forward movement of the song. (In the second vocal chorus the lines about the bugle are simply not sung; Bessie Smith speaks an enthusias c [if slightly music-apprecia onish] “Listen to the bugle call!” and Joe Smith answers with a deligh ully bugle-ish/raggy cornet solo which keeps things going. This can be done because the lines about the bugle have been done straight in the fi rst chorus.) Trombonist Jimmy Harrison, the least well-known member of Her Band, is par cularly useful in “Alexander’s Rag me Band,” especially for his two-note responses to the singer’s four-note phrases (“Come on and hear”; “Come on along”; “Up to the man”). Less elaborate than the response of a call-and-response, similar in both verses, they perhaps represent the person who has “come along” with Bessie. At any rate, they’re valuable, all the more for being straigh orward and unobtrusive. And, fi nally, there’s Her Band’s own chorus. It’s a Dixieland chorus, not a rag me chorus – as “Alexander’s Rag me Band” itself is not a Joplin-rag but a Tin Pan Alley rag – but with Joe Smith’s inspiring cornet lead it’s irresis ble. Jimmy Harrison gives impeccable bass support.

Some miscellanea on Bessie’s “Alexander”: Not a cri cism but worth no ng: Bessie Smith does not quite reproduce Irving Berlin’s homage to Stephen Foster, “the Swanee River played in rag me.”10 Avoiding this literal quota on is not a defect in Bessie’s performance but something to be happy about. – happy for Irving Berlin – since it shows that the strength of his song doesn’t rely on its twist at its end – and happy for Bessie Smith, who is willing to sacrifi ce the quote to sing what she needs to sing. We ran into Bessie’s change of words when we quoted the beginning of the song. There’s no surprise in this: she o en changed the wording of songs in her repertory.11 What is surprising here is that her changes here are to more standard-English phrases than what’s in the original – “let’s go down there” from “let’s meander” and “the best band in the land” from “the bestest band what am.” I have a suspicion that Bessie Smith disliked having dialect forced on her: perhaps her avoidance of “bestest band what am” is an example of this. Or perhaps “best band in the land” is just how she had sung it in vaudeville. One change she does not make is in “sounds so natural [‘natchel’] that you want to go to war.”

Page 2 (fi rst page of music) for “Alexander’s Rag me Band.” Note bizarre words of beginning of (never sung) second verse (courtesy Music Division

of the Library of Congress)

48 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

From the late 1960s on, this has o en been changed to “Sounds so natural that you want to hear some more,” ini ally because of an -war feeling, later because it’s how people have always heard it sung. Anyhow, Bessie Smith, singing in the period a er The War to End All Wars, has no trouble with the original words.12

The three “old tunes” in this session are s ll part of the consciousness of those interested in American popular song. The up-to-date song in the session, “Muddy Water,” is now known only as a Bessie Smith recording, and, for Bing Crosby comple sts, as “Bing’s fi rst solo record” (vocalist in a Paul Whiteman recording; single chorus without verse). “Muddy Water” - music by Peter DeRose (“Deep Purple”) and Harry Richman, words by Jo Trent - was published late in 1926. It had started out strong, with at least nine other recordings made before Bessie Smith’s, including performances by Ben Bernie, Don Voorhees, and the Harry Richman who gets co-composer credit; the Paul Whiteman/Bing Crosby recording was made March 7, fi ve days a er Bessie’s. But in April and May came the great 1927 Mississippi fl ood, which killed enthusiasm for songs about the wonders of the Mississippi Delta: Bessie

Second page of manuscript copyright deposit of “Muddy Water.” Note the words “Me and my fella” - changed to “Just God’s own shelter” in printed copyright - at bo om of page (courtesy Music Division, Library of Congress)

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 49

Smith and Whiteman/Crosby were the last signifi cant 1927 recordings of “Muddy Water.” (In 1936 the Jimmie Lunceford band made an important recording of the tune; almost en rely instrumental, up-tempo [as the 1927 jazz-band recordings tended to be as well], with an o and, rather dismissive – “this is old- me stuff ” – vocal chorus by male trio at the end.) “Muddy Water” is the quintessen al performance of Bessie Smith as Diva: a single arc of great singing, from the nostalgic-an cipatory scene-pain ng of the start – Dixie moonlight, Swanee shore – to the triumphant ending – My heart cries out for muddy water!The music is a single verse and chorus of the song – no repeat-of-chorus, no second chorus, no instrumental interlude. The momentum of the performance is helped by the fact that the verse of “Muddy Water” fl ows into the chorus without the kind of formal break we are used to in popular songs of the period: if you’re coming to this song new – as most of us are – you’re unlikely to hear the joint.13

The eff ect is also helped by Fletcher Henderson’s brilliant arranging. The two clarinets – Henderson must have brought the second clarinet into the session for just this song – do a duet, mainly in thirds, tracing the harmonies; 14 Jimmie Harrison’s trombone underlines with its smears the start of new phrases; Henderson’s own piano keeps quietly an account of the full harmony. Joe Smith’s cornet plays only the intro, the instrumental windup, and one magnifi cent bluesy cry a er the singer’s fi rst long phrase. The banjo does not play in “Muddy Water;” its sound is too raffi sh for this serious song. Even without Charlie Dixon’s banjo, the sound of Her Band is suffi ciently low-down to fi t in with a song which sings of the “low-down blues.”15

“Muddy Water” is the climax of the series of longing-for-the-South numbers recorded by Bessie Smith. This series started with “Gulf Coast Blues” in her fi rst session to contain an actually released record, and includes such numbers as “Far Away Blues” (with Clara Smith!), ”Moonshine Blues,” “Lou’siana Low-Down Blues,” “Dixie Flyer Blues,” “Florida Bound Blues,” and, yes, “New Gulf Coast Blues.” This is not the place, and I am not the person, to consider the real a tude of that eminent Philadelphian Bessie Smith to the Gulf Coast; but longing for the South had been an important trope in American popular song since at least Stephen Foster, and the topic was a staple of Tin Pan Alley un l just about the me of “Muddy Water.” There’s no Bessie Smith record a er “Muddy Water” which is purely a longing-for-the-South song, though she’s quite happy saying good things about par cular spots (“New Orleans Hop Scop Blues”; “Hot Springs Blues”).16

Two notes on words. First, on “Just God’s own shelter / Down on the Delta,” the most obscure line of the March 2 session. It’s not obscure in the sense of hard-to-make-out – it comes through loud and clear17 – but what does it mean? Is “God’s own shelter” the sky? Or the palm-trees? Either one is pre y meager as shelter against a good all-out thunderstorm. The explana on is simple: the line, in the early version of the song as represented by its fi rst, unpublished copyright deposit, reads “Me and my fella / Down on the Delta.” Something had to be changed if it was to be singable by male singers – the usual singers of incidental vocal solos in jazz-orchestra recordings – and so “Just God’s own shelter,” whatever it might mean, was plugged in as a subs tute.18

Second note on words: Bessie Smith’s March 2 session, designed to try out various new repertories, includes no “blues” – neither “blues” in the twelve-bar sense nor blues-by- tle. So it’s a par cular pleasure to hear, in “Muddy Water,” the lines Muddy water in my shoes, Reelin’ and rockin’ to them low-down blues.The published sheet music gives that second line as merely Rockin’ to those low down blues;various recorded singers devised various elabora ons of this basic line. Bessie Smith found her “Reelin’ and rockin’” in Ma Rainey’s 1923 “Moonshine Blues,” which Bessie had covered in April 1924.19

50 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

Like “Alexander’s Rag me Band,” “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” invites the listener to join the singer at a fes ve event – Come along, get ready, wear your brand-brand new gown,For there’s going to be a mee ng in this good, good old town.This me the singer seems to have a male persona: in the second verse he hugs and kisses a Miss Henrie a Beazer (who is “all dressed in red”).20 This is no trouble for Bessie Smith, who has sung in male persona before (“Keeps on a-Raining” is a good example). What would be perplexing if we cared to worry about it is whom the singer is talking to: in the fi rst verse it seems it’s to his girlfriend/wife (“Get your brand-brand new gown”), in the second it’s to a set of his male friends: There’ll be girls for everybody in this good, good old town: There’s Miss Gonzola Davis and Miss Gondula Brown….But it’s an old song and Bessie sings it as it’s been sung (though Miss Davis and Miss Brown are “Consola” and “Gondolia” respec vely in the printed music). “A Hot Time in the Old Town”21 – words by Joe Hayden, music by the otherwise obscure Theodore Metz, was published

in 1896, when Bessie Smith was two years old. Like the other songs on Bessie’s March 2 session it consists in its published form of two “verses” and a “chorus.” This is the only one of the four in which we hear the second verse; in the others we hear the fi rst verse followed by the chorus (“Muddy Water”) or a series of choruses – the standard formula for the presenta on of a “modern” popular song in the 1920s.22 But turn-of-the-century songs were tradi onally sung diff erently – fi rst verse and chorus, second verse and chorus, and so on through as many verses as you cared to sing. “Hot Time” even incorporates this structure into its lyrics – When the verse am through in the chorus we’ll all join in: There’ll be a hot me in (the) old town tonight!23

There is one oddity in the verse-and-chorus structure of “Hot Time,” an oddity I wouldn’t bother with in this column if it weren’t for what I’ll be talking about in the paragraph following this one. Normally verse and chorus have diff erent melodies; each verse has a separate set of words, while there is usually the same set of words for each chorus. (Most excep ons to this same-words-for-the-chorus are comic songs: new chorus, new set of jokes.) “Hot Time” works somewhat diff erently: there’s a fi rst sec on (four lines of text; a diff erent set of words for each me through the song24), a second sec on, also four lines, with a diff erent melody and with a separate, new set of words for each me through,

Cover of “A Hot Time in the Old Town.” The rural laborers on the cover seem an odd match for the upwardly-mobile folks - “get your brand-new

gown” - in the song itself (courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive).

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 51

each ending with the extra words “Oh, Baby” leading to the third sec on, which has the same melody as the second sec on but which has the same words both mes. Musically this is verse / chorus / chorus; textually it’s fi rst half of verse / second half of verse / chorus. When I transcribed the words of Bessie Smith’s “Hot Time,” before I’d looked at the printed music, I labeled the fi rst sec on as “verse” and the second-and-third-together as “chorus”; when I did look at the published music I found that it calls only the fi nal sec on, which has the same words each me through and is signaled by that preliminary “Oh baby”, as Chorus. I hope this will make the next paragraph, which (unlike this one) has some bearing on what the listener will actually hear on Bessie Smith’s record, more intelligible.

Spontaneous-sounding, good- me-at-end-of-session performance as

it is, “Hot Time” actually has a carefully planned alterna ng key structure which must have been worked out ahead of me. It is, in fact, the only Bessie Smith

record which involves changes of key.25 The key changes really help keep this great old- mer going at full speed, and yet they don’t sound like a moderniza on of this song which lives off its old- meyness. Here, with apologies, is how it works:•Brief instrumental intro and the fi rst four lines of Verse 1 are in F major; single-chord modula on to E fl at major;26

•Second four lines of the verse and all the chorus – basically the part of “Hot Time” which has the tune of the chorus – in E fl at; quick modula on back to F for•instrumental “Chorus” – hard not to think of it as twice-through-the-chorus rather than as second-half-of-verse-plus-chorus, anyway instrumental version of all of the second tune – followed by•First four lines of second verse, s ll in F; again, one-chord modula on to E fl at for•Second four lines of verse plus chorus, through to end of song.How wonderfully this fi nal shi of keys brings out Miss Henrie a Beazer’s reac on to being “hugged and kissed” by the singer: “Please, oh please, oh do not let me fall…”(Miss Beazer is the only Bessie Smith character to be worried about her virginity.) One aspect of “Hot Time” may be a surprise to those who know only the chorus proper: the fact that the “hot me” is, at least in its fi rst verse, associated with religion. The “mee ng in this good, good old town” is in fact a church or camp-ground mee ng, and the fi rst me we hear the second half of the

Page 5 of copyright deposit copy of “A Hot Time in the Old Town,” confi rming that the Chorus proper begins at “When you hear dem a bells...”

(courtesy Music Division, Library of Congress).

52 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

verse – the tune which will end up being the tune of the chorus – the words are: When you hear that the preaching has begin Bend down low for to drive away your sin: When you get religion you want to shout and sing; There’ll be a hot me….Religion goes out the window with the fi rst chorus, when hearing “that the preaching have begin” is replaced by When you hear them bells go ding-a-ling…In the second verse any sugges on of religion is replaced by those “girls for everybody.” But the second verse/chorus of “Hot Time” is actually no more sugges ve than the fi rst: its slogan is, rather, When the verse am through in the chorus we’ll all join in.A happy end to a great session.

What were the consequences of this session, which tried out new-to-Bessie Smith repertory? The immediate consequence – probably arranged when the March 2 session was arranged – was a session the next day, in which Bessie Smith was accompanied by a trio – “Her Blue Boys” – consis ng of Fletcher Henderson and Joe Smith from her March 2 session plus her (and Henderson’s) regular trombonist Charlie Green.27 This session, which produced “Trombone Cholly,” “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair,” “Them’s Graveyard Words,” and “Hot Springs Blues” (Bessie Smith’s singing commercial to the Arkansas spa), proved that a six-man accompaniment was certainly not necessary for a successful recording. Her next session, on April 1, was accompanied only by James P. Johnson; it produced “Sweet Mistreater” and “Lock and Key,” demonstra ng that Bessie plus piano was enough. (It helped if the piano was James P. Johnson, but this was by no means necessary.) The results of the March 2 session, as deligh ul as they seem to us now, did not convince Columbia that Bessie plus a group big enough to be called “Her Band” was a profi table enterprise; of her remaining sessions for Columbia only four have more than three instruments accompanying her. No later session had as many instruments as the six that accompanied “Muddy Water” in our session. (The one later session with fi ve instruments [May 15, 1929] was another landmark session, resul ng in “I Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart To Give It Away)” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”, the polar opposites – raunchy/ultra-serious – which represent the philosophical extremes of Bessie’s repertory.) Nor did the repertories explored in our session appear in Bessie Smith’s later recordings. The two earlier songs which do show up are “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1918) and George W. Thomas’s wonderfully eccentric “New Orleans Hop Scop Blues” (1923).28 It’s fun to think of songs she might have recorded (what would she have done with “Ballin’ the Jack?”) but what recordings that she did record would we sacrifi ce for them? And for us? Bessie Smith’s recorded performances are individual works, not to be grouped ruthlessly into suites which should be heard together. In the era of LPs/CDs, when collec ons of Bessie Smith (or Clara Smith, or Ida Cox, or Louis Armstrong…) were usually arranged chronologically, we o en got a fortuitous grouping-by-session if we put on a disc and listened through;29 but the performances were always single works, to be listened to individually at will and mixed with other recordings as we wished – as the original 78 RPM records had been. The four sides Bessie and Her Band cut on March 2, 1927, aren’t a “suite” to be listened to as a unit; you can listen to “A er You’ve Gone” next to “Back Water Blues” (or to Nina Simone’s “A er You’ve Gone,” or to Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grappelli’s – or to anything that suits your mood). But looking at a session as a unit does give us a chance to look at the performer at a par cular moment; and the March 2 session does bring us Bessie Smith at her best, and partly in repertory she wouldn’t otherwise have recorded. And this session does give us a chance to hear how Bessie might have sounded in black-vaudeville repertory – complete with Miss Henrie a Beazer in her all-red dress.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 53

Endnotes

1 Bessie Smith herself, I suspect, would have had a say in the fi nal selec on; perhaps Fletcher Henderson, who would be responsible for the instrumental accompaniment, would have been consulted as well. 2 All four, in their published sheet-music, have two verses – that is, two diff erent texts to the same music. Only in the turn-of-the-century song do we hear the second verse in Bessie Smith’s performance.3 The sessions which produced “Cake-Walking Babies from Home” and “The Yellow Dog Blues” are the only other sessions Hawkins played in. This was Harrison’s only session with Bessie Smith.4 In the 1925 session the accompanying ensemble was billed as “Henderson’s Hot Six.” Charlie Green was trombone, Cyrus St. Clair was tuba.5 Lis ngs on other songs make it fairly clear that Creamer was basically lyricist while Layton was composer; I list this as it is in the credit in Julius Ma eld’s Variety Music Cavalcade (New York: Pren ce-Hall, 1952).6 I will quote lyrics as Bessie sings them rather than as they’re printed in sheet music unless otherwise noted.7 I’m speaking of words; the music is the same. Later-published copies – including those which s ll have the stunning cover of the fi rst edi on – have only the words of the prophesy.8 In the 1929 Louis Armstrong recording, Armstrong seems to start singing the “Oh! Babe” words in his o and vocal chorus; then he stops singing for the remainder of the song.9 The published music for the second line reads (and most performances sing) “Be er hurry and let’s meander,” which gives a good rhyme for “Alexander.” I confess I miss it, not so much for the rhyme as for the casualness it suggests.10 To reproduce Foster’s tune, on that fi nal word “rag me” the note she sings on the fi rst syllable would be short, followed by a higher note on the second syllable.11 I deal with this briefl y in my fi rst column for The Jazz Archivist, vol. 28 (2015), 51-53.12 Or, in “Poor Man Blues,” with the lines “Poor man fi ght all the ba les, poor man would fi ght again today / He would do anything you ask him in the name of the U.S.A.” (She is credited with the authorship of “Poor Man Blues.”) 13 The chorus, as marked in the sheet-music and as sung on those dance-band records in which the chorus only is sung, begins with the fi rst occurrence of the words “Muddy Water.”14 Alterna ng between a two-note falling mo ve and a three-note up-and-then-back fi gure, the la er taking over more and more as the record goes on.15 I am not absolutely sure that the banjo is not an unobtrusive part of the instrumental ending.16 Or, for that ma er, saying scary things about Southern places – if you iden fy the Black Mountain of “Black Mountain Blues” (where “a child will slap your face”) as being par cularly southern.17 And it’s the reading of the published sheet music.18 Billy Hillpot, with Jack Pe s and His Band, does sing “Me and my fella.” (Try YouTube – “Muddy Water Jack Pe s” is best way to enter.)19 In “Moonshine Blues” – both Ma Rainey’s and Bessie Smith’s recordings – it’s “Reelin’ and a-rockin.’”20 She’s “Miss Johanna Beasly” in the published music, but she’s immortal as “Miss Henrie a Beazer” – spelling of “Beazer” indefi nite.21 As the tle reads in the fi rst published edi on (New York: Willis Woodward & Co., 1896).22 It is hard to imagine anyone going back for the very strange second verse of “Alexander’s Rag me Band.” 23 Bessie’s omission of “the” before “old town” is not a sugges on that she’s thinking of the “old town” sec on of a par cular city (“old town” Philadelphia, say); it’s a playful informality.24 In both the song-as-published and Bessie Smith’s record.25 A word of thanks to Edward Brooks, The Bessie Smith Companion (New York: DaCapo, 1982, 120) for no ng this.26 “Major” will be understood a er “F” and “E fl at” from here on.27 Was Green unavailable for the March 2 session? Or did Henderson want Jimmie Harrison for his ability to “smear” both loudly when called for and with a fair amount of subtlety when needed?28 The la er probably suggested by Clarence Williams, who was pianist for the two 1923 recordings as well as the Bessie Smith recording.29 In the CD era we could, of course, listen in “shuffl e” mode.

54 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

A Sneak Preview of the Eddie Edwards Collec onThis recently-received collec on, a legacy of the great ODJB tombonist Eddie Edwards, is s ll in process. Its availabilty will aff ord an extraordinary overview of Edwards’s decades-long career.

Top le : This is probably the Jerusalem Temple Band, of which Eddie Edwards was a member for several years before the rise of the ODJB. Edwards is probably the third bandsman from the right. 1915 is suggested as the date of the photo. The Worth’s Drug Store sign on the far right side of the photo suggests it was taken in the 600 block of St. Charles Avenue.

Bo om le : In 1918, with the ODJB’s career in full swing, Eddie Edwards was dra ed. This le er of recommenda on from veteran Jerusalem Temple Bandmaster Charles W. Stumpf was apparently part of a campaign to pull Edwards into the Army Band. Edwards’s correspondence fi les are a highlight of this collec on.

Bo om right: Eddie Edwards in the Army, 1919.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 55

Top right: Edwards o en took snapshots of the marquees of the venues he appeared in. This one shows the Cafe La Marne, on the

boardwalk at Coney Island, in the summer of 1921.

Below le : Adver sing card for a concert and dance at Busoni’s Danceland, Coney Island, for the benefi t of Russian Famine Orphans,

1923. The reverse side of the card gives the same informa on in Yiddish.

Bo om: Selec ons played by the Eddie Edwards Dance Orchestra aboard the SS Hendrick Hudson, 1931.

56 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

The Casino Gardens, corner of Clark and Kenzie streets in Chicago, published a four-page “Souvenir Menu” in connec on with its “Informal Opening,” dated Thursday, November 23,

1916. One page was devoted to the musical menu: The Original Dixieland Jass Band, with Eddie Edwards standing front-and-center,

and the Famous Kentucky Jug Band, aka the Famous Louisville Jug Band.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 57

Curator’s Commentary As you may have guessed by now, this will be my last Curator’s Commentary. This journey has been sa sfying beyond belief, due largely to the support and exper se of the men and women who have staff ed the Hogan Jazz Archive, especially Alma Williams Freeman, Lynn Abbo , and Alaina Hebert, and of the cavalcade of scholars who have used our resources. The past year has been busy in terms of enhancements to the collec on, including the arrival of the Eddie Edwards collec on donated by his grandson Gary in February, which turned into an event commemora ng the centennial of the release of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues”/”Dixie Jass Band One-step” recording with three genera ons of Edwards family members in a endance. The Edwards collec on allows for comparison with Nick LaRocca’s papers, and the discrepancies between these collec ons are o en notable, off ering some mes confl ic ng versions of the band’s history. Historians eat that stuff up! In August the Archive also took possession of Louis Prima’s collec on, with the excep on of some audio-visual material that is being triaged and digi zed at Safe Sound in Philadelphia. Renova on of the former Rare Books Display Room in Jones Hall into the Louis Prima Room is proceeding on schedule, including the installa on of two gorgeous oversized photographic portraits of Prima represen ng diff erent aspects of his persona,

donated by the Gia Maione Prima Founda on. The inaugura on of the Louis Prima Room will occur on October 27, coinciding with the installa on of Alaina Hebert’s tri-centennial exhibit, “Building a Tradi on: the Mul faceted Legacy of Women in New Orleans Music,” in the Second Floor Gallery in Jones Hall. Alaina’s interest in this topic extends coverage to encompass not only the women who made the music but also those who raised sons and grandsons to the trade. At the end of August, the extensive recorded sound collec on of Bill Mossman was delivered by his son John, with the surprise inclusion of elements from Merrill Hammond’s collec on. Although we o en decline large phono disc dona ons because of the likelihood of duplica on, this dona on promises to fi ll many gaps and off ers unique test pressings that have high research value. I didn’t get to greet John Mossman because I was in Amsterdam a ending the “Rhythm Changes: Re-Sounding Jazz” conference and a pre-conference workshop on European jazz archives. “Rhythm Changes” has long been my favorite interna onal jazz studies event (this was my fourth of the fi ve held thus far), not only because it allows me to reconnect with old friends but perhaps even more because it provides an opportunity to witness the incredibly talented young scholars who are now popula ng the fi eld. This conference, in par cular, was a showcase for the work we do at the Hogan Jazz Archive. I chaired one session which included Mathilde Zagala, a Fulbright scholar who spent six months at the

Kathy, Brenna, and John Mossman succesfully piloted the Bill Mossman Collec on of Recorded Sound from Chicago to New

Orleans. Brenna graduated from Tulane in 2015.

Gary Edwards (in hat) and family pose for the Tulane photographer. They added a hear elt personal touch to the

arrival of the Eddie Edwards Collec on.

58 The Jazz Archivist XXX, 2017

Archive studying “trois sur quatre”/”secondary rag me” mo fs in New Orleans 19th century sheet music, pursuant to her doctoral study, which was completed at the Université Paris Sorbonne in December 2016. This was her introduc on to the jazz studies community and the recep on to her analysis by Darius Brubeck and others in a endance was overwhelmingly posi ve and construc ve. I admit to taking a certain pride in her accomplishment. English musicologist Vic Hobson was also on the session, talking about barbershop harmony and the construc on of the ODJB’s “Dixie Jass Band One-Step”—Vic has made numerous trips to the Archive since 2006 and will visit again in January as a Bärnheim scholar. Kings College musicologist Andy Fry and I shared a session: he spent a month at the Archive in July gathering material on the Dukes of Dixieland, the Audio Fidelity label, and the advent of “high fi delity” stereo technology, which somehow became conjoined with the Assunto Brother’s re-versioning of tradi onal New Orleans jazz, replete with Confederate caps and fl ags, as the vehicle for marke ng the new technology. Let’s just say that Andy knew what to do with this complicated intersec on of sani zed historical memory and techno fe sh. My paper was tled “LaRocca’s Rage: Caucasian Guilt and Asser veness as a Jazz Studies Dialec c,” intended as a counterpoise to Michele Cinque’s fi lm, Sicily Jass: the World’s First Man in Jazz, which was shown at the conference. The fi lm was a call for compassion regarding LaRocca’s demons and had the added benefi t (from my perspec ve) of showcasing elements of the LaRocca collec on, especially the myriad of scrapbooks, housed at the Hogan Jazz Archive. Like I said, we were very well represented at “Rhythm Changes.” Earlier in August at the Satchmo Summerfest, I assisted Björn Bärnheim with presen ng part two of his research on Louis Armstrong’s return visits to New Orleans, this me taking the story from his experience as King Zulu in 1949 through the 1960s with a special emphasis on his consistent a empts to advance civil rights for African Americans by subver ng racial restric ons on performance and

Our latest Bärnheim Scholars (clockwise from upper le ): Nikolas Sparks; Sascha Just with

guest Ellis Marsalis; and Maxine Gordon with guest Felipe Smith.

XXX, 2017 The Jazz Archivist 59

repudia ng Louisiana’s “an -mixing” laws, a trend that was evident well before 1957 when he publicly challenged President Eisenhower over the tragedy surrounding a empts to integrate schools in Li le Rock, Arkansas. A ending the Satchmo Summerfest were two Bärnheim Research Fellows: Nikolas Sparks, who has been studying Storyville, street culture, and urban networks, and Maxine Gordon, who presented a wonderful paper on Velma Middleton at SSF. Maxine later returned in September to begin research on Zulu. Performance Studies doctoral candidate Sascha Just made trips as a research fellow in December 2016 and May 2017 and conducted an extensive interview with pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis. These research fellowships are proving to be very popular, and Björn’s dream of advancing the scholarship by assis ng young researchers who wish to use the Archive’s resources is defi nitely coming true. This is a dream we share, and the sa sfac on I have experienced in a rac ng talented scholars and educators to the Archive, in developing digital resources online (especially the Music Rising oral history ini a ve), and in establishing a regular revenue fl ow to address preserva on and conserva on

issues is my best reward for nearly forty years of service at the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and the Hogan Jazz Archive. It has been a very good run indeed, and above all, an exercise in the power of collabora on. A recent case in point would be the par cipa on of the Archive’s staff in the Na onal Endowment for the Humani es teacher workshops administered by Rebecca Snedeker and Denise Frazier of Tulane’s New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and supervised by Sonya Robinson and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes in June and July 2017. Two groups of thirty-fi ve elementary and secondary school teachers—one group local, the other recruited na onally—worked with Alaina Hebert, Lynn Abbo , and me to explore and develop topics related to civil rights and New Orleans jazz using the full range of audio-visual resources available at the Archive: sheet music, fi lm, recorded sound, photography, and oral history. Each teacher received individual a en on. The “hands on” nature of the interac on was reminiscent of the ways in which neighborhood networks raise young musicians into the cra communally, in this case taking inspira on from Bruce Barnes and Rachel Breunlin’s book, Talk That Music Talk (2014), which everyone read. If you want to infl uence young people and ins ll a sense of intellectual curiosity in them, working with their teachers is the way to go. A er the workshops were over, we con nued to fi ne-tune projects with the teachers, and who knows? We may see some of them as Bärnheim Fellows in the years to come. Bruce Boyd Raeburn

Curator Bruce Raeburn looks on (far right) as par cipants in the

recent Na onal Endowment for the Humani es workshop are briefed by (unseen) staff ers Alaina Hebert and Lynn Abbo on the treasures

of the Hogan Jazz Archive.

This remarkable shard is part of the Walter Eysselinck Collec on, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University. It shows New Orleans trumpet legend Charlie Love seated in the bandwagon of the Florida Blossom Minstrels, in what may have been

their fi nal season on the road. When Love was interviewed by Richard B. Allen on June 20, 1958, he recalled: “I got a le er from Buck Nelson on the Florida Blossom Minstrel Show. And in ‘31 I worked over there... they sent for me to be

the leader of the band over there.” He went on to say that he took Earl Humphrey with him and that they were s ll with the show when it stranded in Salisbury, North Carolina, late that summer. Correspondence from the Florida Blossoms in the July 25, 1931, edi on of the Chicago Defender said they were “doing good business through North Carolina...

In the band, under the direc on of Charles Love, are: Reeds - Elmer Wheller [sic] and Joe Washington. Brass - Charles Love, Amos Strickland, Audro Hooks, Earl Humphrie [sic], J. C. Davis and Buck Nelson. Drums - Foots Robinson and Jock

Thompson.” This was the fi nal communica on from the Florida Blossoms.